Tseitin or not Tseitin? The Impact of CNF Transformations on Feature-Model Analyses
Feature modeling is widely used to systematically model features of variant-rich software systems and their dependencies. By translating feature models into propositional formulas and analyzing them with solvers, a wide range of automated analyses across all phases of the software development process become possible. Most solvers only accept formulas in conjunctive normal form (CNF), so an additional transformation of feature models is often necessary. However, it is unclear whether this transformation has a noticeable impact on analyses. In this paper, we compare three transformations (i.e., distributive, Tseitin, and Plaisted-Greenbaum) for bringing feature-model formulas into CNF. We analyze which transformation can be used to correctly perform feature-model analyses and evaluate three CNF transformation tools (i.e., FeatureIDE, KConfigReader, and KClause) on a corpus of 22 real-world feature models. Our empirical evaluation illustrates that some CNF transformations do not scale to complex feature models or even lead to wrong results for certain analyses. Further, the choice of the CNF transformation can substantially influence the performance of subsequent analyses.
Thu 13 OctDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
16:00 - 18:00 | Technical Session 32 - Formal Methods and Models IITool Demonstrations / Journal-first Papers / Research Papers at Banquet B Chair(s): Khouloud Gaaloul University of Michigan - Dearborn | ||
16:00 10mDemonstration | CBMC-SSM: Bounded Model Checking of C Programs with Symbolic Shadow Memory Tool Demonstrations Bernd Fischer Stellenbosch University, South Africa, Salvatore La Torre Università degli Studi di Salerno, Gennaro Parlato University of Molise, Peter Schrammel University of Sussex and Diffblue Ltd | ||
16:10 20mResearch paper | Tseitin or not Tseitin? The Impact of CNF Transformations on Feature-Model Analyses Research Papers Elias Kuiter Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Sebastian Krieter University of Ulm, Chico Sundermann University of Ulm, Thomas Thüm University of Ulm, Gunter Saake University of Magdeburg, Germany | ||
16:30 20mPaper | A three-valued model abstraction framework for PCTL* stochastic model checkingVirtual Journal-first Papers Yang Liu Shanghai Maritime University/National University of Singapore, Yan Ma Nanjing University of Finance and Economics / National University of Singapore, Yongsheng Yang Shanghai Maritime University File Attached | ||
16:50 20mResearch paper | Finding and Understanding Incompleteness Bugs in SMT SolversVirtual Research Papers | ||
17:10 20mResearch paper | Checking LTL Satisfiability via End-to-end LearningVirtual Research Papers Weilin Luo School of Computer Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Hai Wan School of Data and Computer Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Delong Zhang SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY, Jianfeng Du Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Hengdi Su SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY | ||
17:30 20mResearch paper | QVIP: An ILP-based Formal Verification Approach for Quantized Neural NetworksVirtual Research Papers Yedi Zhang ShanghaiTech University, Zhe Zhao ShanghaiTech University, Guangke Chen ShanghaiTech University, Fu Song ShanghaiTech University, Min Zhang East China Normal University, Taolue Chen Birkbeck University of London, Jun Sun Singapore Management University |