<$BlogRSDUrl$> Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
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Tuesday, September 12, 2006  



Daikon Invariant Detector
http://pag.csail.mit.edu/daikon/

Daikon is an implementation of dynamic detection of likely invariants; that is, the Daikon invariant detector reports likely program invariants. An invariant is a property that holds at a certain point or points in a program; these are often seen in assert statements, documentation, and formal specifications. Invariants can be useful in program understanding and a host of other applications. Examples include “.field > abs(y)”; “y = 2*x+3”; “array a is sorted”; “for all list objects lst, lst.next.prev = lst”; “for all treenode objects n, n.left.value < null =""> p.content in myArray”; and many more. You can extend Daikon to add new properties (see Enhancing Daikon output). Dynamic invariant detection runs a program, observes the values that the program computes, and then reports properties that were true over the observed executions. Daikon can detect properties in C, C++, Java, Perl, and IOA programs; in spreadsheet files; and in other data sources. (Dynamic invariant detection is a machine learning technique that can be applied to arbitrary data.) It is easy to extend Daikon to other applications; as one example, an interface exists to the Java PathFinder model checker. This has been added to World Wide Web Reference Subject Tracer™ Information Blog.

posted by Marcus Zillman | 4:09 AM
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