# 8. The VC Generators¶

This chapter gives information about the various processes that generate the so-called verification conditions, VC for short, from WhyML code.

## 8.1. VC generation for program functions¶

For each program function of the form

let f (x1: t1) ... (xn: tn): t
requires { Pre }
ensures  { Post }
= body

a new logic goal called f'VC is generated. Its shape is

$\forall x_1,\dots,x_n,\quad \mathit{Pre} \Rightarrow \mathit{WP}(\mathit{body},\mathit{Post})$

where $$\mathit{WP}(e,Q)$$ is a formula computed automatically using rules defined recursively on $$e$$.

TODO: Refer to A Pragmatic Type System for Deductive Verification

Attributes: [@vc:divergent] disables generation of VC for termination

## 8.2. VC generated for type invariants¶

How a VC is generated for proving that a type with invariant is inhabited. Explain also the use of the by keyword in this context.

## 8.3. VC generation and lemma functions¶

How a VC for a program function marked as lemma is turned into an hypothesis for the remaining of the module.

## 8.4. Using strongest post-conditions¶

To avoid exponential explosion of WP computation, Why3 provides a mechanism similar to (TODO: cite papers here).

This can be activited locally on any program expression, by putting the [@vc:sp] attribute on that expression. Yet, the simplest usage is to pose this attribute on the whole body of a program function.

Show an example.

## 8.5. Automatic inference of loop invariants¶

Why3 can be executed with support for inferring loop invariants [Bau17] (see Section 5.5 for information about the compilation of Why3 with support for infer-loop).

There are two ways of enabling the inference of loop invariants: by passing the debug flag infer-loop to Why3 or by annotating let declarations with the [@infer] attribute.

Below is an example on how to invoke Why3 such that invariants are inferred for all the loops in the given file.

why3 ide tests/infer/incr.mlw --debug=infer-loop


In this case, the Polyhedra default domain will be used together with the default widening value of 3. Why3 GUI will not display the inferred invariants in the source code, but the VCs corresponding to those invariants will be displayed and labeled with the infer-loop keyword as shown in Fig. 8.1.

Fig. 8.1 The GUI with inferred invariants (after split).

Alternatively, attributes can be used in let declarations so that invariants are inferred for all the loops in that declaration. In this case, it is possible to select the desired domain and widening value. In the example below, invariants will be inferred using the Polyhedra domain and a widening value of 4. These two arguments of the attribute can swapped, for instance, [@infer:Polyhedra:4] will produce exactly the same invariants.

module Incr

use int.Int
use int.MinMax
use ref.Ref
use ref.Refint

let incr[@infer:4:Polyhedra](x:int) : int
ensures { result = max x 0 }
= let i = ref 0 in
while !i < x do
variant { x - !i }
incr i;
done;
!i
end


There are a few debugging flags that can be passed to Why3 to output additional information about the inference of loop invariants. Flag infer-print-cfg will print the Control Flow Graph (CFG) used for abstract interpretation in a file with the name inferdbg.dot; infer-print-ai-result will print to the standard output the computed abstract values at each point of the CFG; print-inferred-invs will print the inferred invariants to the standard output (note that the displayed identifiers names might not be consistent with those in the initial program); finally, print-domains-loop will print for each loop the loop expression, the domain at that point, and its translation into a Why3 term.

### 8.5.1. Current limitations¶

1. Loop invariants can only be inferred for loops inside (non-recursive) let declarations.