A view of program verification

Abstract

One person's perspectives of program verification and its relation to some aspects of reliable software are presented. The main verification method of inductive assertions is illustrated with several variations of one detailed example; a second example shows a surprisingly simple inductive assertion proof of an iterative tree traversal example. Briefly discussed also are the implicit assumptions of most verifications, proving termination, the creating of assertions, and languages in which to write assertions. An abstract overview is given of existing program verification systems together with a sample list of verified programs. A short bibliography is included.