Symbolic Shape Analysis

1.0

Shape analysis deals with the synthesis of invariants for programs manipulating heap-allocated data structures. Explicit shape analysis algorithms do not scale very well. This work proposes a framework for symbolic shape analysis that addresses this problem. Our contribution is a framework that allows to abstract programs with heap-allocated data symbolically by Boolean programs. For this purpose, we combine abstraction techniques from shape analysis with ideas from predicate abstraction. Our framework is parameterized by a set of abstraction predicates. We propose a class of predicates that can be used to analyze reachability properties for linked data structures. This class may potentially be used for automated abstraction refinement.

Verification, Abstract Interpretation, Predicate Abstraction, Shape Analysis