Reasoning about C++ in Prolog

Ct+ is one of the most popular and widely used object-oriented programming languages today. It is also widely accepted to be quite complex to understand and difficult to learn and to use. In an attempt at alleviating these problems and to make C++ a more tractable language, the authors are currently investigating the use of Prolog to represent the semantics of C++ constructs and applying it to reason about C++ programs. The idea is to represent each of the language features in the form of Prolog programs and to pose any operation as a theorem to be proved. If the theorem can be proved, then the operation is correct in C++, whereas if it fails, it represents a violation of the rules of the language. In this paper, the authors discuss their approach, touch upon a tool that implements their key ideas and indicate future directions.