https://github.com/mmcco/verified-parser-example

A minimal example of a formally verified parser using ocamllex and Menhir's Coq backend.
https://github.com/mmcco/verified-parser-example

Last synced: 3 months ago
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A minimal example of a formally verified parser using ocamllex and Menhir's Coq backend.

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/mmcco/verified-parser-example
• Owner: mmcco
• License: bsd-3-clause
• Created: 2015-03-13T23:36:19.000Z (over 9 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2015-03-19T04:36:25.000Z (over 9 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-02-17T07:34:57.108Z (9 months ago)
• Language: Coq
• Size: 230 KB
• Stars: 19
• Watchers: 2
• Forks: 1
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md
  • License: LICENSE

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README

        
# verified-parser-example

A minimal example of a formally verified parser using ocamllex and Menhir's Coq

backend.

This would seem to be simpler than it is, as the interaction between the lexer

(directly generated OCaml) and the parser (OCaml extracted from generated Coq)

is nonobvious, not standardized, and generally undocumented.

## Requirements

* Coq

* OCaml (with ocamlfind and ocamllex, which should be included)

* the OCaml Batteries library

* Menhir

## On the parser

A Coq backend (using the `--coq` flag) exists in Menhir. It

originated in and is used by [CompCert](http://compcert.inria.fr/). It isn't

yet included in the Menhir documentation, but its section is drafted and will

be added soon.  CompCert and this repo are the only parsers written with this

backend that I'm aware of. CompCert uses a lot of interesting techniques, but

is very complex because of the pre-parser necessary to deal with warts in

C specifications.

Jacques-Henri Jourdan, the author of the verified parser, has written a

[blog post](http://gallium.inria.fr/~scherer/gagallium/verifying-a-parser-for-a-c-compiler/index.html)

and a [journal article](http://gallium.inria.fr/~xleroy/publi/validated-parser.pdf)

describing it at a conceptual and theoretical level.

## Notes

Piecing together the OCaml bits was made harder by my lack of experience with

the languages, so there may be some dumb choices in build strategy, style,

conventions, etc. If you notice any, please let me know.

This was written as part of Joe Politz's programming languages seminar at

Swarthmore College. It's an early step in our investigation of verifying

kernel-level interpreters such as BPF.

Thanks to Jacques-Henri Jourdan, who was very open and helpful.