Types as Models: Model Checking Message-Passing Programs

Abstraction and composition are the fundamental issues in making model checking viable for software. This paper proposes new techniques for automating abstraction and decomposition using source level type information provided by the programmer. Our system includes two novel components to achieve this end: (1) a behavioral type-and-eect system for the -calculus, which extracts sound models as types, and (2) an assume-guarantee proof rule for carrying out compositional model checking on the types. Open simulation between CCS processes is used as both the subtyping relation in the type system and the abstraction relation for compositional model checking