Natural proofs for data structure manipulation in C using separation logic

The natural proof technique for heap verification developed by Qiu et al. [32] provides a platform for powerful sound reasoning for specifications written in a dialect of separation logic called Dryad. Natural proofs are proof tactics that enable automated reasoning exploiting recursion, mimicking common patterns found in human proofs. However, these proofs are known to work only for a simple toy language [32].

In this work, we develop a framework called VCDRYAD that extends the VCC framework [9] to provide an automated deductive framework against separation logic specifications for C programs based on natural proofs. We develop several new techniques to build this framework, including (a) a novel tool architecture that allows encoding natural proofs at a higher level in order to use the existing VCC framework (including its intricate memory model, the underlying type-checker, and the SMT-based verification infrastructure), and (b) a synthesis of ghost-code annotations that captures natural proof tactics, in essence forcing VCC to find natural proofs using primarily decidable theories.

We evaluate our tool extensively, on more than 150 programs, ranging from code manipulating standard data structures, wellknown open source library routines (Glib, OpenBSD), Linux kernel routines, customized OS data structures, etc. We show that all these C programs can be fully automatically verified using natural proofs (given pre/post conditions and loop invariants) without any user-provided proof tactics. VCDRYAD is perhaps the first deductive verification framework for heap-manipulating programs in a real language that can prove such a wide variety of programs automatically.