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| author | Paul Buetow <paul@buetow.org> | 2026-07-06 10:15:56 +0300 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Paul Buetow <paul@buetow.org> | 2026-07-06 10:15:56 +0300 |
| commit | f74812f8eda48194b622bdd318f35d3a6b6328cd (patch) | |
| tree | 074784495e62f418d9ba4071e824028e8a3daf8c /docs/verification.md | |
| parent | 7aa41c07d15619512a490a0416a504e3200ebf85 (diff) | |
Add layered formal-verification harness
Adds four complementary layers to verify correctness, all runnable locally,
weakest-but-broadest to strongest-but-narrowest:
0. Paper proofs (docs/verification.md): Hoare invariants, termination
measures, and permutation arguments for every algorithm.
1. Property tests (sort/property_test.go): testing/quick asserting ordering
AND permutation for every sort. Closes a real gap -- the existing tests
only checked .Sorted(), so a sort dropping/duplicating elements passed.
2. make verify: go vet + staticcheck + go test -race -short, with -short
gating of the large sizes in sort/search tests so the race build is quick.
3. make verify-model: TLA+/TLC model check of sleep sort (termination,
deadlock-freedom, sorted permutation) -- formal/tla/.
4. make verify-formal: Gobra deductive proof (Viper+Z3) that a monomorphized
insertion sort is memory-safe and sorted for all inputs -- formal/.
The static layer already found a latent bug: hash() used key<<10 on a generic
integer, which silently yields 0 for narrow key types (int8), degrading the
hash. Tests missed it because they only use int keys. Fixed by mixing in int64;
documented extensively in docs/case-study-hash-shift-bug.md.
Also cleans up dead code and a blank-identifier range flagged by staticcheck.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'docs/verification.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | docs/verification.md | 255 |
1 files changed, 255 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/verification.md b/docs/verification.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3959e5b --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/verification.md @@ -0,0 +1,255 @@ +# Hand-written correctness proofs + +This document contains human-written (paper) correctness proofs for the +algorithms in this repository, derived by reading the actual source. Each proof +is a Hoare-style argument: a **precondition**, a **postcondition**, one **loop +invariant** per loop, a **termination measure**, and — for the sorts — a +**permutation argument**. + +These proofs are the human-readable source of truth. They are *human-checked*, +not machine-checked; the automated layers corroborate them: + +- `sort/property_test.go` checks *ordering* **and** *permutation* on thousands + of random inputs (empirical corroboration — see the "permutation" note below). +- `make verify` runs `go vet`, `staticcheck`, and the race detector. This layer + already paid off: it caught a latent bug in `search/hash.go` on its first run + — see [`case-study-hash-shift-bug.md`](case-study-hash-shift-bug.md). +- `formal/tla/SleepSort.tla` exhaustively model-checks the concurrent sleep sort. +- `formal/insertion.go` is a machine-checked (Gobra) proof of insertion sort. + +## Common notation and lemmas + +- `a[p..q]` denotes the inclusive slice of indices `p, p+1, …, q`. An empty + range (`p > q`) is vacuously sorted and vacuously a permutation of itself. +- **sorted(a[p..q])** ≡ `∀ p ≤ r < q : a[r] ≤ a[r+1]`. +- **perm(a, a₀)** ≡ the multiset `{a[0], …, a[n-1]}` equals the multiset of the + original contents `a₀`. + +### Lemma S (Swap preserves the multiset) + +The **only** operation any sort here uses to mutate the backing array is +`ArrayList.Swap` (`ds/arraylist.go:74`), which exchanges two elements. Swapping +two positions leaves the multiset of stored values unchanged. By induction over +the sequence of swaps performed by any algorithm below, **perm(a, a₀) holds at +every point** — the output is always a permutation of the input. This single +lemma discharges the permutation half of every sort's postcondition, so the +per-algorithm proofs below focus on *ordering* and *termination*. + +> The exceptions are `Merge`/`BottomUpMerge`, which write elements via `aux` +> rather than `Swap`; their permutation argument is given inline (Lemma M). + +--- + +## Selection sort — `sort/selection.go:7` + +- **Pre:** `a` holds arbitrary values; `l = len(a)`. +- **Post:** `sorted(a[0..l-1]) ∧ perm(a, a₀)`. + +**Outer invariant** (before iteration `i`, `0 ≤ i ≤ l`): +`sorted(a[0..i-1]) ∧ ∀ p < i ≤ q : a[p] ≤ a[q]` — i.e. the prefix `a[0..i-1]` +is sorted and every prefix element is ≤ every suffix element. + +**Inner loop** (`j := i+1 … l-1`) computes `min` = index of the smallest element +in `a[i..l-1]` (invariant: `a[min]` is the minimum of `a[i..j-1]`). After the +loop, `a.Swap(i, min)` moves that minimum to position `i`. This element is ≥ all +of `a[0..i-1]` (by the outer invariant, everything in `a[i..]` is ≥ the prefix) +and ≤ everything remaining in `a[i+1..]`, so the outer invariant re-establishes +for `i+1`. + +**Termination:** outer `i` and inner `j` each range over a fixed finite index +set and strictly increase. **Permutation:** Lemma S. At `i = l` the invariant +gives `sorted(a[0..l-1])`. ∎ + +## Insertion sort — `sort/insertion.go:7` + +- **Post:** `sorted(a[0..l-1]) ∧ perm(a, a₀)`. + +**Outer invariant** (before iteration `i`): `sorted(a[0..i-1])`. + +**Inner loop** (`j := i; j > 0; j--`) bubbles `a[i]` left, stopping via `break` +as soon as `a[j] > a[j-1]` (the pair is already in order) or when `j = 0`. +**Inner invariant** (at each test): `a[0..i]` is a permutation of its original +prefix contents; `sorted(a[j..i])`; and `∀ j < r ≤ i : a[r] ≥ a[j]`. When the +loop stops, the entire prefix `a[0..i]` is sorted, re-establishing the outer +invariant for `i+1`. + +Note the loop swaps on *equality* too (it breaks only on strict `a[j] > a[j-1]`), +which is harmless — it performs a few extra swaps but preserves both sortedness +and (by Lemma S) the multiset. + +**Termination:** inner measure `j` strictly decreases and is bounded below by 0; +outer `i` ranges over `range a`. ∎ + +## Shell sort — `sort/shell.go:7` + +Shell sort is insertion sort applied on a decreasing sequence of gaps +`h ∈ {…, 40, 13, 4, 1}` (built by `h = 3h+1`, then `h /= 3`). + +- **Post:** `sorted(a[0..l-1]) ∧ perm(a, a₀)`. + +For a fixed gap `h`, the body is an *h-interleaved* insertion sort: the inner +loop (`j := i; j >= h; j -= h`) inserts `a[i]` into the sorted-by-`h` +subsequence `…, a[i-2h], a[i-h], a[i]`, breaking when `a[j-h] < a[j]`. By the +insertion-sort argument applied to each residue class mod `h`, after the `h` +pass every h-strided subsequence is sorted (the array is "h-sorted"). + +The final gap is always `h = 1` (the loop condition is `h >= 1` and integer +division reaches 1). A 1-sorted array is fully `sorted(a[0..l-1])`. The earlier +larger-gap passes only reorder via `Swap`, so they neither break the final +1-sort's correctness nor the multiset. + +**Termination:** the gap loop strictly decreases `h` via `h /= 3` until `h < 1`; +each inner loop terminates as in insertion sort. **Permutation:** Lemma S. ∎ + +## Merge sort — `sort/merge.go:7` + +Recursive top-down merge sort; base case (`l ≤ 10`) delegates to insertion sort. + +- **Post of `mergeSort(a, aux)`:** `sorted(a) ∧ perm(a, a₀)`. + +**Induction on `l = len(a)`.** *Base* (`l ≤ 10`): insertion sort, proven above. +*Step*: `mi = l/2`; the two recursive calls sort the disjoint halves `a[0..mi-1]` +and `a[mi..l-1]` (IH). `merge(a, aux, 0, mi, l-1)` then combines them. + +### Lemma M (merge is correct and permutation-preserving) — `sort/merge.go:27` + +`merge` first copies `a[lo..hi]` into `aux[lo..hi]`, then walks `k = lo … hi` +with two read cursors `i` (into the left run, starting `lo`) and `j` (into the +right run, starting `mi`). **Invariant** at each `k`: `a[lo..k-1]` is sorted and +is exactly the `k-lo` smallest elements of `aux[lo..hi]`, with `i`, `j` pointing +at the unconsumed heads of the two (individually sorted) runs. The 4-way +`switch` picks the smaller available head (`aux[i] > aux[j]` → take right, else +take left; boundary cases when a run is exhausted: `i >= mi` or `j > hi`). Each +step consumes exactly one source element and advances exactly one cursor, so +after `hi-lo+1` steps every element of `aux[lo..hi]` has been written back once +→ `perm` holds and `a[lo..hi]` is sorted. ∎ + +Because the merge preserves the multiset and produces a sorted whole from two +sorted halves, the step re-establishes the postcondition. + +**Termination:** each recursion halves the length, bottoming out at `l ≤ 10`. ∎ + +## Bottom-up merge sort — `sort/bottomupmerge.go:7` + +Iterative merge sort. **Outer invariant** (before the pass with subarray size +`sz`, a power of two): every aligned block `a[k·sz .. (k+1)·sz - 1]` is sorted. +The inner loop merges adjacent pairs of `sz`-blocks via the same `merge` +(Lemma M), using `min(lo+sz+sz-1, l-1)` (`sort/bottomupmerge.go:20`) to clamp +the final, possibly short, block to the array end. After the pass, every block +of size `2·sz` is sorted — the invariant for the next pass. + +**Termination:** `sz` doubles (`sz = sz + sz`) until `sz ≥ l`; the loop then +stops with the whole array as one sorted block. **Permutation:** Lemma M applied +to each merge. ∎ + +## Quick sort — `sort/quick.go:9` (highest scrutiny) + +Recursive quicksort; base case (`l ≤ 10`) delegates to insertion sort. The +interesting part is `quickPartition` (`sort/quick.go:25`), examined line by line +because its index bounds are the most error-prone code in the repo. + +Setup for an array of length `l ≥ 11` (partition is only reached from +`quick` when `l > 10`, so `hi = l-1 ≥ 10`): + +``` +i := 0; j := l; hi := l-1 +a.Swap(0, median(a, l)); v := a[0] // pivot chosen by median-of-3, parked at index 0 +``` + +**Left scan** `for i++; a[i] < v && i < hi; i++`: +`i` starts at 1. Because the test `i < hi` is ANDed in, `i` can advance at most +to `hi`; when `i == hi` the guard `i < hi` is false and the loop stops. The +array access `a[i]` therefore uses indices in `[1, hi] = [1, l-1]` — **always in +bounds**. The scan stops at the first index with `a[i] ≥ v` (or at `hi`), so on +exit `∀ 1 ≤ r < i : a[r] < v`. + +**Right scan** `for j--; v < a[j] && j > 0; j--`: +`j` starts at `l`, immediately decremented to `l-1 = hi`. The guard `j > 0` +caps it at 0; and since `a[0] == v`, the head test `v < a[0]` is false, so the +scan halts at `j = 0` at the latest — `j` **never goes negative**. Accesses use +`[0, hi]`. On exit `∀ j < r ≤ hi : a[r] > v`, and `a[j] ≤ v`. + +**Loop:** if `i ≥ j` the scans have crossed → `break`; otherwise `a.Swap(i, j)` +sends the `≥ v` element right and the `≤ v` element left, and the invariant +`a[1..i-1] < v ∧ a[j+1..hi] > v` is maintained across iterations. + +**Finalize** `a.Swap(0, j)`: at break, `a[j] ≤ v` (right scan stopped there), so +after the swap `a[j] = v` with `a[0..j-1] ≤ v ≤ a[j+1..hi]`. Return `j`. + +**Verdict:** the invariant *closes* — no out-of-bounds and no off-by-one. The +`i < hi` bound and the `a[0] == v` sentinel are exactly what keep the two scans +in range without relying on external sentinels. Duplicates equal to `v` are +handled correctly: strict inequalities make both scans stop on equal keys, which +is the standard technique to avoid quadratic blow-up on many duplicates and does +not violate the partition postcondition. On the all-equal input the scans meet +near the middle and the recursion still shrinks, so there is no infinite loop. + +`quick` then recurses on `a[0..j-1]` and `a[j+1..]`, which by the partition +postcondition are correctly ordered relative to `v`; by induction on length the +whole array is sorted. **Termination:** each partition removes the pivot and +splits the rest into two strictly-smaller subranges. **Permutation:** Lemma S. ∎ + +## 3-way quicksort — `sort/quick3way.go:8` + +Dijkstra's 3-way (Dutch-national-flag) partition; shuffles first, base case +(`l ≤ 10`) insertion sort. Pivot `v = a[0]` (after `Swap(0, median)`). + +**Invariant** of the partition loop (`for i <= gt`), with `lt`, `i`, `gt`: +`a[0..lt-1] < v`, `a[lt..i-1] == v`, `a[gt+1..hi] > v`, and `a[i..gt]` unexamined. +The `switch` maintains it: `a[i] < v` → `Swap(lt, i); lt++; i++`; `a[i] > v` → +`Swap(i, gt); gt--` (leaves `i`, since the swapped-in element is unexamined); +`a[i] == v` → `i++`. When `i > gt` the middle band `a[lt..gt]` equals `v` and is +in final position, so only `a[0..lt-1]` and `a[gt+1..hi]` need recursion. + +**Termination:** each iteration either advances `i` or lowers `gt`, so the gap +`gt - i` strictly decreases; recursion shrinks the ranges. **Permutation:** +Lemma S. ∎ + +## Shuffle — `sort/shuffle.go:9` (NOT a sort) + +`Shuffle` produces a uniformly random permutation (used by `Quick3Way` and the +`TestShuffleSort` negative test). For each `i`, `r := l - rand.Intn(l-i) - 1`. +Since `rand.Intn(l-i) ∈ [0, l-i-1]`, we get `r ∈ [i, l-1]`, so each `Swap(i, r)` +exchanges `a[i]` with a uniformly chosen element of the unshuffled suffix — this +is the Fisher–Yates shuffle, yielding each of the `l!` permutations with equal +probability. **Post:** `perm(a, a₀)` (Lemma S); ordering is intentionally *not* +guaranteed. ∎ + +## Parallel merge / parallel quick — `sort/parallelmerge.go:9`, `sort/parallelquick.go:9` + +These reuse the sequential `mergeSort`/`quick`/`quickPartition` proven above and +parallelize the two recursive calls once the length crosses a threshold +(`< 1000` falls back to sequential). + +**Correctness reduces to data-race freedom.** In both, the two goroutines +operate on **disjoint** subranges: + +- `parallelMerge`: `a[0:mi]` / `a[mi:]` and, crucially, `aux[0:mi]` / `aux[mi:]` + are non-overlapping slices, so the two subtrees touch disjoint memory. The + `wg.Wait()` **happens-before** the top-level `merge`, so the merge observes + both halves fully sorted. No goroutine reads memory another writes + concurrently. +- `parallelQuick`: `quickPartition` runs *before* the goroutines are spawned and + fixes the pivot at index `j`; the children then own `a[0:j]` and `a[j+1:]` — + disjoint, and both exclude the settled pivot `a[j]`. `wg.Wait()` joins before + returning. + +Given disjointness + the `WaitGroup` join fence, the parallel executions compute +the same result as their sequential counterparts, whose correctness is proven +above. The **race detector** (`make verify`) corroborates the disjointness claim +dynamically. ∎ + +## Sleep sort — `sort/sleep.go:9` + +`Sleep` (integers only) spawns one goroutine per element that sleeps +`num` seconds, then sends `num` on a shared channel; a `WaitGroup` closes the +channel once all sends complete; the main goroutine appends received values. + +Correctness rests on the *timing assumption* that a larger value's sleep +finishes strictly later, so values arrive on the channel in non-decreasing +order. This assumption — and the concurrency safety (the closer goroutine's +`wg.Wait()` happening-after every `wg.Done()`, no send on a closed channel, and +termination without deadlock) — is **not** something a paper proof can settle +convincingly. It is instead model-checked exhaustively in +`formal/tla/SleepSort.tla`, which is the appropriate tool for this coordination +logic. See that model and its README for the machine-checked result. |
