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arXiv · 1803.06547

Meta-F*: Proof Automation with SMT, Tactics, and Metaprograms

Guido Martínez·Danel Ahman·Victor Dumitrescu·Nick Giannarakis·Chris Hawblitzel·Catalin Hritcu·Monal Narasimhamurthy·Zoe Paraskevopoulou·Clément Pit-Claudel·Jonathan Protzenko·Tahina Ramananandro·Aseem Rastogi·Nikhil Swamy
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Abstract

We introduce Meta-F*, a tactics and metaprogramming framework for the F* program verifier. The main novelty of Meta-F* is allowing the use of tactics and metaprogramming to discharge assertions not solvable by SMT, or to just simplify them into well-behaved SMT fragments. Plus, Meta-F* can be used to generate verified code automatically. Meta-F* is implemented as an F* effect, which, given the powerful effect system of F*, heavily increases code reuse and even enables the lightweight verification of metaprograms. Metaprograms can be either interpreted, or compiled to efficient native code that can be dynamically loaded into the F* type-checker and can interoperate with interpreted code. Evaluation on realistic case studies shows that Meta-F* provides substantial gains in proof development, efficiency, and robustness.

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Guido Martínez, Danel Ahman, Victor Dumitrescu, Nick Giannarakis, Chris Hawblitzel, Catalin Hritcu, Monal Narasimhamurthy, Zoe Paraskevopoulou, Clément Pit-Claudel, Jonathan Protzenko, Tahina Ramananandro, Aseem Rastogi, Nikhil Swamy. 2019-03-07. Meta-F*: Proof Automation with SMT, Tactics, and Metaprograms. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.06547

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