Journal Article

Approximate counting in SMT and value estimation for probabilistic programs

Majumdar, Rupak, Dimitrova, Rayna, Chistikov, Dmitry

2017

Overview

#SMT, or model counting for logical theories, is a well-known hard problem that generalizes such tasks as counting the number of satisfying assignments to a Boolean formula and computing the volume of a polytope. In the realm of satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) there is a growing need for model counting solvers, coming from several application domains (quantitative information flow, static analysis of probabilistic programs). In this paper, we show a reduction from an approximate version of #SMT  to SMT. We focus on the theories of integer arithmetic and linear real arithmetic. We propose model counting algorithms that provide approximate solutions with formal bounds on the approximation error. They run in polynomial time and make a polynomial number of queries to the SMT solver for the underlying theory, exploiting “for free” the sophisticated heuristics implemented within modern SMT solvers. We have implemented the algorithms and used them to solve the value problem for a model of loop-free probabilistic programs with nondeterminism.

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Algorithms / Arithmetic / Boolean algebra / Computer programming / Computer Science / Computer Systems Organization and Communication Networks / Data Structures and Information Theory / Information flow / Information Systems and Communication Service / Integer programming / Logics and Meanings of Programs / Original Article / Polynomials / Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems / Solvers / Static code analysis / Theory of Computation