SHF: Small: INCA: Incremental Analysis of Software Specification for Evolving Systems

SHF：小型：INCA：不断发展的系统软件规范的增量分析

• 批准号: 2204536
• 负责人: Allison Sullivan
• 金额: $ 48.99万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Arlington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-01 至 2025-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2204536&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SHF; Small; INCA; Incremental; Analysis

From the cars we drive to online banking, society has become increasingly dependent on software systems. As a result, software reliability remains an important problem to solve. One way developers can improve software reliability is by using software models, which allow developers to define the behavior of their software in the form of mathematical logic. Once a software system is modeled, various tools exist that automatically analyze the model for any issues with the software’s design. Unfortunately, software systems are not static: software is constantly getting updated as new features are added or requirements change. As the system evolves, the software model also needs to be updated and re-analyzed. However, if the change to the model is small, this analysis can be largely redundant. This project looks to improve the efficiency of re-running different types of analysis over an updated model, which increases the feasibility for maintaining models of real world systems. The project involves preparing students for their careers by mentoring graduate students and connecting students to role models in the formal methods community, and the tools developed by the project will improve formal methods education. The project focuses on improving incremental analysis of Alloy models based on three ways users can interact with a model: writing a model, testing a model, and synthesizing a model. First, this project explores improvements to incremental analysis when writing Alloy models, which focuses on how to maximize reuse of past scenarios and how to minimize the new scenario exploration problem. This project investigates a suite of techniques that derive new reuse and exploration strategies based on what component of the model changed and seek to present the impact of the change to the user through disjoint categories of scenarios. Second, this project explores improvements to incremental analysis when testing Alloy models, which includes introducing regression testing to Alloy as well as leveraging first order logic to automatically generate high value tests that reason over the changed portion of the model. Third, this project explores improvements to incrementally synthesizing Alloy models by pausing the sketch to generate tests to refine the synthesis problem and by creating an incremental, parallel sketching environment. In addition to research papers, the project will produce open-source toolsets and benchmarks of incremental models.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

从我们驾驶的汽车到网上银行，社会越来越依赖软件系统。因此，软件可靠性仍然是一个需要解决的重要问题。开发人员提高软件可靠性的一种方法是使用软件模型，它允许开发人员以数学逻辑的形式定义其软件的行为。软件系统建模后，就会出现各种工具来自动分析模型以找出软件设计的任何问题。不幸的是，软件系统不是静态的：随着新功能的添加或需求的变化，软件会不断更新。 随着系统的发展，软件模型也需要更新和重新分析。但是，如果模型的更改很小，则此分析可能在很大程度上是多余的。该项目旨在提高在更新的模型上重新运行不同类型分析的效率，从而提高维护现实世界系统模型的可行性。该项目包括通过指导研究生并将学生与正式方法社区中的榜样联系起来，为学生的职业生涯做好准备，该项目开发的工具将改善正式方法教育。该项目的重点是基于用户与模型交互的三种方式改进 Alloy 模型的增量分析：编写模型、测试模型和综合模型。首先，这个项目探索了编写 Alloy 模型时增量分析的改进，重点是如何最大限度地重用过去的场景以及如何最小化新场景的探索问题。该项目研究了一套技术，这些技术根据模型的哪些组件发生了变化，得出新的重用和探索策略，并试图通过不相交的场景类别向用户呈现变化的影响。其次，该项目探索了测试 Alloy 模型时增量分析的改进，其中包括向 Alloy 引入回归测试以及利用一阶逻辑自动生成高价值测试，对模型的更改部分进行推理。第三，该项目通过暂停草图生成测试来完善合成问题以及创建增量并行草图绘制环境，探索对增量合成 Alloy 模型的改进。除了研究论文外，该项目还将产生开源工具集和增量模型基准。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Abstract Alloy Instances

抽象合金实例

• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Formal Methods - 25th International Symposium
• 作者: Ringert, J.O.;Sullivan, A.
• 通讯作者: Sullivan, A.