Spectrum-Based Fault Localization for Logic-Based Reasoning

Abstract

When obtaining a full-fledged model for diagnostic and debugging purposes is out of reach, abstract logic models might allow us to fall back to abductive reasoning for isolating faults. Such models often only aggregate knowledge about which inputs and faults would have this or that effect on the system. Like in property-based system design or formal verification, we have that the quality of the resulting reasoning process depends heavily on this logic model. Since logic descriptions are not entirely intuitive to formulate and automated processes to derive them are prone to be incomplete, we'd certainly be interested in assessing a model's quality and isolate issues. In this paper, we're proposing to use test cases and spectrum-based fault localization for this task, drawing on the flexibility and ease-of-use of such a spectrum-based concept. Focusing on logic models formulated in propositional Horn-clauses, we provide examples that show the attractiveness of our concept.