Maximising axiomatization coverage and minimizing regression testing time

Abstract

The correctness of program verification systems is of great importance, as they are used to formally prove that safety- and security-critical programs follow their specification. One of the contributing factors to the correctness of the whole verification system is the correctness of the background axiomatization, which captures the semantics of the target program language. We present a framework for the maximization of the proportion of the axiomatization that is used (“covered”) during testing of the verification tool. The diverse set of test cases found not only increases the trust in the verification system, but it can also be used to reduce the time needed for regression testing.