A Framework for Counterexample Generation and Exploration
Abstract
Model-checking is becoming an accepted technique for debugging
hardware and software systems. Debugging is
based on the ``Check / Analyze / Fix'' loop:
check the system against a desired property,
producing a counterexample when the property fails to hold;
analyze the generated counterexample to locate the source of
the error; fix the flawed artifact -- the property or the model.
The success of model-checking non-trivial systems
critically depends on making this Check / Analyze / Fix loop
as tight as possible.
In this paper, we concentrate on the Analyze part
of the debugging loop. To this end, we present a framework
for generating, structuring and exploring counterexamples
either interactively or with the help of user-specified strategies.