VERMEER: A Tool for Tracing and Explaining Faulty C Programs

We present VERMEER, a new automated debugging tool for C. VERMEER combines two functionalities: (1) a dynamic tracer that produces a linearized trace from a faulty C program and a given test input; and (2) a static analyzer that explains why the trace fails. The tool works in phases that simplify the input program to a linear trace, which is then analyzed using an automated theorem prover to produce the explanation. The output of each phase is a valid C program. VERMEER is able to produce useful explanations of non trivial traces for real C programs within a few seconds. The tool demo can be found at http://youtu.be/E5lKHNJVerU.