文章基本信息
- 标题：On the Use of Underspecified Data-Type Semantics for Type Safety in Low-Level Code
- 本地全文：下载
- 作者：Hendrik Tews ; Marcus Völp ; Tjark Weber 等
- 期刊名称：Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science
- 电子版ISSN：2075-2180
- 出版年度：2012
- 卷号：102
- 页码：73-87
- DOI：10.4204/EPTCS.102.8
- 出版社：Open Publishing Association
- 摘要：In recent projects on operating-system verification, C and C++ data types are often formalized using a semantics that does not fully specify the precise byte encoding of objects. It is well-known that such an underspecified data-type semantics can be used to detect certain kinds of type errors. In general, however, underspecified data-type semantics are unsound: they assign well-defined meaning to programs that have undefined behavior according to the C and C++ language standards.
A precise characterization of the type-correctness properties that can be enforced with underspecified data-type semantics is still missing. In this paper, we identify strengths and weaknesses of underspecified data-type semantics for ensuring type safety of low-level systems code. We prove sufficient conditions to detect certain classes of type errors and, finally, identify a trade-off between the complexity of underspecified data-type semantics and their type-checking capabilities.
