Counter-example generation in symbolic abstract model-checking

The boundaries of model-checking have been extended through the use of abstraction. When applied to correct programs, these techniques work very well in practice. However, when applied to incorrect programs, it is, in general, undecidable whether an abstract trace corresponding to a counter-example has any concrete counterparts. For debugging purposes, one usually desires to go further than giving a yes/no answer, and generate such concrete counter-examples. We propose a solution in which we apply standard test-pattern generation technology to search for concrete instances of abstract traces.peer-reviewe