A Hoare Logic for Domain Specification (Full Version)

TL;DR

This paper introduces a two-tier Hoare Logic that combines program correctness with domain-specific assertions using description logics and semantic lifting, enabling domain-aware verification.

Contribution

It presents a novel calculus that integrates domain assertions into Hoare Logic by translating between implementation and domain specifications.

Findings

Enables verification with domain-specific assertions

Uses description logics for domain modeling

Separates implementation and domain concerns in verification

Abstract

Programs must be correct with respect to their application domain. Yet, the program specification and verification approaches so far only consider correctness in terms of computations. In this work, we present a two-tier Hoare Logic that integrates assertions for both implementation and domain. For domain specification, we use description logics and semantic lifting, a recently proposed approach to interpret a program as a knowledge graph. We present a calculus that uses translations between both kinds of assertions, thus separating the concerns in specification, but enabling the use of description logic in verification.