| Class: | Mondays and Wednesdays, 5–6:50pm, GFS 220 |
| Instructor: | Mukund Raghothaman (raghotha@usc.edu) |
| Office hours: | Fridays, 3–5pm, or by appointment, SAL 308 |
This course is about the theory and practice of algorithmic program verification. We will discuss how programmers can prove that their code is correct, and how this process may be automated. We will study SAT and SMT solvers, and learn how to use them and how they work. These are sophisticated reasoning engines, and their use increasingly impacting other areas of computer science. We will see how they can be used to build automatic program synthesizers, which produce code that is correct-by-construction. [Syllabus]
Prerequisites: First, the course will expect a certain amount of mathematical maturity from its students, at least at the level of CSCI 170, and preferably at the level of CSCI 270. Second, we will be reasoning about code: we expect that the student will already be proficient in writing it.
Note: The syllabus and schedule listed on this webpage are tentative, and may be updated as the course progresses. Please check back regularly!
The course will consist of four homework assignments and an open-ended project, graded equally. The homework assignments are intended to develop familiarity with the material covered in class. In the project, you will apply and extend ideas from the course to a research problem of your choice. The project may be done either alone or in pairs. Please consult the instructor for feedback while choosing project topics.
| Jan 13 | Course introduction, motivation, logistics. [Intro slides] |
| Jan 15 | The Program Verification Problem for a Simple Programming Language. |
| Jan 20 | No class. MLK Day. |
| Jan 23 | No class. Mukund away at POPL. |
| Jan 27 | Symbolic Execution. See slides by Emina Torlak and Michael Hicks. |
| Jan 29 | Inductive invariants, verification conditions, and program correctness. See slides by Jonathan Aldrich, and Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 5 of Mike Gordon's lecture notes. |
| Feb 3 | Automatic invariant generation. See CAV 2015 tutorial presented by Madhusudan Parthasarathy and Pranav Garg. [Notes from class]. |
| Feb 5 | Proving that programs terminate. See Byron Cook et al., CACM 2011. Also see his talk on the topic. |
| Feb 10 | Propositional logic, satisfiability and validity. [Notes from class] |
| Feb 13 | Basics of SAT solvers: DPLL, unit propagation, and solving Horn-SAT in polynomial time. Read chapters 1 and 2 of Kroening and Strichman. [Notes from class] |
| Feb 17 | No class. President's Day. |
| Feb 19 | Solving 2-SAT in polynomial time. [Notes from class] |
| Feb 24 | Tutorial on Homework 1. [Notes from class], [Example Dafny program] |
| Feb 26 | Tutorial on Homework 1. [Notes from class] |
| Mar 2 | Conflict driven clause learning, and an introduction to SMT. See this animation of clause learning in action, and slides prepared by Clark Barrett. Read chapters 3, 4 and 10 of Kroening and Strichman. [Notes from class] |
| Mar 4 | SMT solvers (contd.) [Notes from class] |
| Mar 9 | Concluding our discussion of SMT solvers. [Notes from class] |
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Note on collaborative work: For collaborative projects, students are expected to have equal distribution of work. If there is any perceived imbalance in the collaborative project, the student should bring this to the attention of the instructor or the teaching assistant.
Assistance with writing and disabilities: Several USC's schools provide support for students who need help with scholarly writing. Check with your advisor or program staff to find out more. Students whose primary language is not English should check with the American Language Institute which sponsors courses and workshops specifically for international graduate students. The Office of Disability Services and Programs provides certification for students with disabilities and helps arrange the relevant accommodations. If an officially declared emergency makes travel to campus infeasible, USC Emergency Information will provide safety and other updates, including ways in which instruction will be continued by means of Blackboard, teleconferencing, and other technology.
Last updated: Fri Dec 24 05:02:19 AM PST 2021