Integrating Tools for Automatic Program Verification

In this paper we describe our findings after integrating several tools based upon the Java Modeling Language (JML) [1], a specification language used to annotate Java programs. The tools we consider are Daikon [2], ESC/Java [3], JML runtime assertion checker [1], and Loop/PVS tool [4]. The first one generates specifications; the others are used to verify them. We find that for the first three it is worthwhile to combine them because this is relatively easy and it improves the specifications. Combining Daikon and the Loop/PVS tool directly works in theory, but in practice it only works if the test suite is very good and hence it is not advisable.