TY - GEN
T1 - Structure-Guided Solution of Constrained Horn Clauses
AU - Rappoport, Omer
AU - Grumberg, Orna
AU - Vizel, Yakir
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - We present StHorn, a novel technique for solving the satisfiability problem of CHCs, which works lazily and incrementally and is guided by the structure of the set of CHCs. Our technique is driven by the idea that a set of CHCs can be solved in parts, making it an easier problem for the CHC-solver. Furthermore, solving a set of CHCs can benefit from an interpretation revealed by the solver for its subsets. Our technique is lazy in that it gradually extends the set of checked CHCs, as needed. It is incremental in the way it constructs a solution by using satisfying interpretations obtained for previously checked subsets. In order to capture the structure of the problem, we define an induced CHC hypergraph that precisely corresponds to the set of CHCs. The paths in this graph are explored and used to select the clauses to be solved. We implemented StHorn on top of two CHC-solvers, Spacer and Eldarica. Our evaluation shows that StHorn complements both tools and can solve instances that cannot be solved by the other tools. We conclude that StHorn can improve upon the state-of-the-art in CHC solving.
AB - We present StHorn, a novel technique for solving the satisfiability problem of CHCs, which works lazily and incrementally and is guided by the structure of the set of CHCs. Our technique is driven by the idea that a set of CHCs can be solved in parts, making it an easier problem for the CHC-solver. Furthermore, solving a set of CHCs can benefit from an interpretation revealed by the solver for its subsets. Our technique is lazy in that it gradually extends the set of checked CHCs, as needed. It is incremental in the way it constructs a solution by using satisfying interpretations obtained for previously checked subsets. In order to capture the structure of the problem, we define an induced CHC hypergraph that precisely corresponds to the set of CHCs. The paths in this graph are explored and used to select the clauses to be solved. We implemented StHorn on top of two CHC-solvers, Spacer and Eldarica. Our evaluation shows that StHorn complements both tools and can solve instances that cannot be solved by the other tools. We conclude that StHorn can improve upon the state-of-the-art in CHC solving.
KW - CHC-SAT
KW - Constrained Horn Clauses
KW - Verification
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85176007636
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-45332-8_6
DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-45332-8_6
M3 - Conference contribution
SN - 9783031453311
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 117
EP - 138
BT - Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis - 21st International Symposium, ATVA 2023, Proceedings
A2 - André, Étienne
A2 - Sun, Jun
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
T2 - 21st International Symposium on Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis, ATVA 2023
Y2 - 24 October 2023 through 27 October 2023
ER -