arXiv subjects

Abel Nieto

Publications and source records attributed to Abel Nieto.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Trillium: Higher-Order Concurrent and Distributed Separation Logic for Intensional Refinement

Expressive state-of-the-art separation logics rely on step-indexing to model semantically complex features and to support modular reasoning about imperative higher-order concurrent and distributed programs. Step-indexing comes, however, with an inherent cost: it restricts the adequacy theorem of program logics to a fairly simple class of safety properties. In this paper, we explore if and how intensional refinement is a viable methodology for strengthening higher-order concurrent (and distributed) separation logic to prove non-trivial safety and liveness properties. Specifically, we introduce Trillium, a language-agnostic separation logic framework for showing intensional refinement relations between traces of a program and a model. We instantiate Trillium with a concurrent language and develop Fairis, a concurrent separation logic, that we use to show liveness properties of concurrent programs under fair scheduling assumptions through a fair liveness-preserving refinement of a model. We also instantiate Trillium with a distributed language and obtain an extension of Aneris, a distributed separation logic, which we use to show refinement relations between distributed systems and TLA+ models.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2018

Tamarin: Concolic Disequivalence for MIPS

Given two MIPS programs, when are they equivalent? At first glance, this is tricky to define, because of the unstructured nature of assembly code. We propose the use of alternating concolic execution to detect whether two programs are disequivalent. We have implemented our approach in a tool called Tamarin, which includes a MIPS emulator instrumented to record symbolic traces, as well as a concolic execution engine that integrates with the Z3 solver. We show that Tamarin is able to reason about program disequivalence in a number of scenarios, without any a-priori knowledge about the MIPS programs under consideration.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2017

Towards Algorithmic Typing for DOT

The Dependent Object Types (DOT) calculus formalizes key features of Scala. The D$_{<: }$ calculus is the core of DOT. To date, presentations of D$_{<: }$ have used declarative typing and subtyping rules, as opposed to algorithmic. Unfortunately, algorithmic typing for full D$_{<: }$ is known to be an undecidable problem. We explore the design space for a restricted version of D$_{<: }$ that has decidable typechecking. Even in this simplified D$_{<: }$ , algorithmic typing and subtyping are tricky, due to the "bad bounds" problem. The Scala compiler bypasses bad bounds at the cost of a loss in expressiveness in its type system. Based on the approach taken in the Scala compiler, we present the Step Typing and Step Subtyping relations for D$_{<: }$. We prove these relations sound and decidable. They are not complete with respect to the original D$_{<: }$ rules.

cs.PL↗