A precise memory model for low-level bounded model checking

Abstract

Abstract—Formalizing the semantics of programming languages like C or C++ for bounded model checking can be cumbersome if complete coverage of all language features is to be achieved. On the other hand, low-level languages that occur during translation (compilation) have a much simpler semantics since they are closer to the machine level. It thus makes sense to use these low-level languages for bounded model checking. In this paper we present a highly precise memory model suitable for bounded model checking of such low-level languages. Our method also takes memory protection (malloc/free) into account. I.