# AProVE: Modular Termination Analysis of Memory-Manipulating C Programs

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.02382 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.02382/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 5 Feb 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [LLMs versus the Halting Problem: Characterizing Program Termination Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.18987/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Termination analysis of C programs is a challenging task. On the one hand, the analysis needs to be precise enough to draw meaningful conclusions. On the other hand, relevant programs in practice are large and require substantial abstraction. It is this inherent trade-off that is the crux of the problem. In this work, we present AProVE, a tool that uses symbolic execution to analyze termination of memory-manipulating C programs. While traditionally, AProVE's focus was on the preciseness of the analysis, we describe how we adapted our approach towards a modular analysis. Due to this adaption, our approach can now also handle recursive programs. Moreover, we present further performance improvements which we developed to make AProVE scale to large programs.