Formal verification of a realistic compiler

Xavier Leroy (1)

1 GALLIUM - Programming languages, types, compilation and proofs

This paper reports on the development and formal verification (proof of semantic preservation) of CompCert, a compiler from Clight (a large subset of the C programming language) to PowerPC assembly code, using the Coq proof assistant both for programming the compiler and for proving its correctness. Such a verified compiler is useful in the context of critical software and its formal verification: the verification of the compiler guarantees that the safety properties proved on the source code hold for the executable compiled code as well.

Domaines: Langage de programmation [cs.PL]

Xavier Leroy. Formal verification of a realistic compiler. Communications of the ACM, 2009, 52 (7), pp.107-115. ⟨10.1145/1538788.1538814⟩. ⟨inria-00415861⟩