Separation Logic Modulo Theories

Abstract

Logical reasoning about program behaviours often requires dealing with heap structures as well as scalar data types. Advances in Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) offer efficient procedures for dealing with scalar values, yet they lack expressive support for dealing with heap structures. In this paper, we present an approach that integrates separation logic—a prominent logic for reasoning about linked data structures on the heap—and existing SMT solving technology. Our model-based approach communicates heap aliasing information between theory and separation logic reasoning, providing an efficient decision procedure for discharging verification conditions in program analysis and verification.