The interactive verification debugger: Effective understanding of interactive proof attempts

The Symbolic Execution Debugger (SED) is an extension of the Eclipse debug platform for interactive symbolic execution. Like a traditional debugger, the SED can be used to locate the origin of a defect and to increase program understanding. However, as it is based on symbolic execution, all execution paths are explored simultaneously. We demonstrate an extension of the SED called Interactive Verification Debugger (IVD) for inspection and understanding of formal verification attempts. By a number of novel views, the IVD allows to quickly comprehend interactive proof situations and to debug the reasons for a proof attempt that got stuck. It is possible to perform interactive proofs completely from within the IVD. It can be experimentally demonstrated that the IVD is more effective in understanding proof attempts than a conventional prover user interface. A screencast explaining proof attempt inspection with the IVD is available at youtu.be/8e-q9Jf1h_w.