Abstract. We illustrate the use of logic programming techniques for finite model checking of CTL formulae. We present a technique for infinite state model checking of safety properties based upon logic program specialisation and analysis techniques. The power of the approach is illustrated on several examples. For that, the efficient tools logen and ecce are used. We discuss how this approach has to be extended to handle more complicated infinite state systems and to handle arbitrary CTL formulae. 1

The so called “cogen approach” to program specialisation, writing a compiler generator instead of a specialiser, has been used with considerable success in partial evaluation of both functional and imperative languages. This paper demonstrates that this approach is also applicable to partial evaluation of logic programming languages, also called partial deduction. Self-application has not been as much in focus in logic programming as for functional and imperative languages, and the attempts to self-apply partial deduction systems have, of yet, not been altogether that successful. So, especially for partial deduction, the cogen approach should prove to have a considerable importance when it comes to practical applications. This paper first develops a generic offline partial deduction technique for pure logic programs, notably supporting partially instantiated datastructures via binding types. From this a very efficient cogen is derived, which generates very efficient generating extensions (executing up to several orders of magnitude faster than current online systems) which in turn perform very good and non-trivial specialisation, even rivalling existing online systems. All this is supported by extensive benchmarks. Finally, it is shown how the cogen can be extended to directly support a large part of Prolog’s declarative and non-declarative features and how semi-online specialisation can be efficiently integrated.

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We clarify the relationship between abstract interpretation and program specialisation in the context of logic programming. We present a generic top-down abstract specialisation framework, along with a generic correctness result, into which a lot of the existing specialisation techniques can be cast. The framework also shows how these techniques can be further improved by moving to more refined abstract domains. It, however, also highlights inherent limitations shared by all these approaches. In order to overcome them, and to fully unify program specialisation with abstract interpretation, we also develop a generic combined bottom-up/top-down framework, which allows specialisation and analysis outside the reach of existing techniques. 1

. Recently, partial deduction of logic programs has been extended to conceptually embed folding. To this end, partial deductions are no longer computed of single atoms, but rather of entire conjunctions; Hence the term "conjunctive partial deduction". Conjunctive partial deduction aims at achieving unfold/fold-like program transformations such as tupling and deforestation within fully automated partial deduction. However, its merits greatly surpass that limited context: Also other major efficiency improvements are obtained through considerably improved side-ways information propagation. In this extended abstract, we investigate conjunctive partial deduction in practice. We describe the concrete options used in the implementation(s), look at abstraction in a practical Prolog context, include and discuss an extensive set of benchmark results. From these, we can conclude that conjunctive partial deduction indeed pays off in practice, thoroughly beating its conventional precursor on a wide...

Abstract. In recent work it has been shown that infinite state model checking can be performed by a combination of partial deduction of logic programs and abstract interpretation. It has also been shown that partial deduction is powerful enough to mimic certain algorithms to decide coverability properties of Petri nets. These algorithms are forward algorithms and hard to scale up to deal with more complicated systems. Recently, it has been proposed to use a backward algorithm scheme instead. This scheme is applicable to so–called well–structured transition systems and was successfully used, e.g., to solve coverability problems for reset Petri nets. In this paper, we discuss how partial deduction can mimic many of these backward algorithms as well. We prove this link in particular for reset Petri nets and Petri nets with transfer and doubling arcs. We thus establish a surprising link between algorithms in Petri net theory and program specialisation, and also shed light on the power of using logic program specialisation for infinite state model checking. 1

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We present an approach to software verification by program inversion, exploiting recent progress in the field of automatic program transformation, partial deduction and abstract interpretation. Abstraction-based partial deduction can work on infinite state spaces and produce finite representations of infinite solution sets. We illustrate the potential of this approach for infinite mo...

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We provide a first investigation of the specialisation and transformation of tabled logic programs through unfolding. We show that --- surprisingly --- unfolding, even determinate, can worsen the termination behaviour in the context of tabling. We therefore establish two criteria which ensure that such mishaps are avoided. We also briefly discuss the influence of some other transformation techniques on the termination and efficiency of tabled logic programs.