C++ Support

This page is a reference of the C++ language features and standard-library headers supported by ESBMC’s Clang-based C++ frontend. For what is not supported, see Limitations.

At a glance

The default is C++17. Select a different standard with --std, for example --std c++20 or --std c++03.

Support is not gap-free at any standard — see Limitations for the known exceptions, notably constructor and destructor ordering.

Verifying a C++ program

ESBMC checks memory safety, arithmetic overflow, pointer safety and user assertions across all inputs, rather than the single input a test would exercise. Given shape.cpp:

#include <cassert>

class Shape
{
public:
  virtual int area() const = 0;
  virtual ~Shape() = default;
};

class Square : public Shape
{
  int side;

public:
  Square(int s) : side(s) {}
  int area() const override { return side * side; }
};

int main()
{
  int n = nondet_int();
  __ESBMC_assume(n >= 1 && n < 100);

  Shape *s = new Square(n);
  assert(s->area() > n);
  delete s;
  return 0;
}

Run it with:

esbmc shape.cpp --incremental-bmc

ESBMC finds the one input that breaks the assertion — n == 1, where 1 * 1 is not greater than 1:

[Counterexample]

State 1 file shape.cpp line 21 column 3 function main thread 0
----------------------------------------------------
  n = 1 (00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001)

State 5 file shape.cpp line 25 column 3 function main thread 0
----------------------------------------------------
Violated property:
  file shape.cpp line 25 column 3 function main
  assertion main
  !((_Bool)((signed long int)(!(return_value$ > n))))

VERIFICATION FAILED

Tightening the assumption to n > 1 makes the property hold for every one of the remaining inputs, and ESBMC reports VERIFICATION SUCCESSFUL.

See the Usage guide for the full set of options and the Constructs reference for __ESBMC_assume, nondet_int and the other verification annotations.

Operational models vs. host headers

By default ESBMC compiles C++ with -nostdinc++, so #include <vector> resolves to ESBMC’s own operational model (OM) rather than your host standard library. OMs are written to be verification-friendly — small, loop-free where possible, and free of the inline assembly and compiler intrinsics that real standard-library implementations rely on.

Two flags change this behaviour:

--mix-cpp-host-headers is the escape hatch for a header ESBMC does not model (see Not modelled below). It is opt-in because names defined by both the OMs and the host library — char_traits, istream and similar — can then produce ambiguity errors at parse time.

Language features

Classes and objects

• Classes, member functions, member access control
• Constructors and destructors, including default, copy and move forms
• Static and non-static data members; default member initialisers
• Unions, including anonymous unions
• typeid on a polymorphic glvalue reports the dynamic type, and the type_info name string is NUL-terminated

Constructors and destructors

• Delegating and inheriting constructors (using Base::Base;), including multi-base and chained forms
• Virtual bases are initialised only in the most-derived constructor
• Destructor chains for members and bases, including virtual base destructors
• Destructors run on return paths, for discarded results, and for temporaries destroyed mid-expression

References, temporaries and move semantics

• Lvalue and rvalue references
• Move constructors and move assignment operators
• Address-of distributes over a conditional lvalue; class-typed conditionals elide their temporaries; a reference parameter binds to the selected arm
• An lvalue conditional over reference-returning calls stays a reference rather than being copied into a temporary, so a write through it — (c ? get(v) : get(w)).x = 2; — reaches the selected object

Lambdas

• Capturing and non-capturing lambdas, including generic (auto-parameter) forms
• A captureless lambda converted to a function pointer produces a callable pointer: both the conversion operator and the static invoker behind it get a body, so int (*f)(int) = [](int x){ return x + 1; }; f(2); runs
• A lambda inside a template instantiation gets its own closure type per instantiation, so two instantiations of the same function template do not share (and corrupt) one capture layout

Templates

• Class and function templates, partial and explicit specialisation
• Variable templates (C++14) and variable template declarations (C++17)
• Class template argument deduction (CTAD)
• Concepts and requires clauses (C++20)

Inheritance and polymorphism

• Single-level and multi-level polymorphism
• Pure virtual methods and abstract classes
• Virtual inheritance, including the diamond problem
• Multiple inheritance: nested base subobjects, dynamic_cast<T*> re-offsetting across bases, override thunks keyed by each base’s virtual name and adjusted by the indirect base’s cumulative offset, and catch-by-base binding re-offset for multiple-inheritance thrown types
• Virtual dispatch through a non-arrow member expression — (*p).f() and ref.f() dispatch virtually

Memory management

• new / delete and new[] / delete[]
• new T[n] runs T’s constructor on every element and delete[] runs its destructor; new T[n]() value-initialises them
• A user-replaced operator new / operator delete — global, class-level, sized or array form — is called instead of the built-in allocator, so a pool allocator that hands out overlapping storage is caught. The aligned (std::align_val_t) and user-placement forms are not routed and keep the built-in path
• Detection of dangling pointers, double delete and mismatched operators
• Placement new, including the form without an initialiser
• delete dispatches through the virtual destructor slot; deleting through a base subobject whose destructor is not virtual is rejected

Exceptions

try / catch / throw are supported directly. Passing --lower-exceptions additionally lowers exception handling into explicit control flow, which enables:

• noexcept and throw() exception specifications
• Dynamic exception specifications, with unexpected / bad_exception recovery
• std::exception_ptr with current_exception, rethrow_exception and make_exception_ptr, plus nested exceptions (throw_with_nested, rethrow_if_nested)
• std::uncaught_exception / std::uncaught_exceptions, via a lowered per-thread count

Other exception behaviour:

• dynamic_cast<T&> throws std::bad_cast on a failed reference cast
• std::vector::at and std::string::at throw std::out_of_range rather than asserting
• std::bad_cast and std::bad_typeid derive from std::exception with a virtual what()
• The exception-state globals are thread-local, so each thread raises, catches and clears its own in-flight exception independently; concurrently-throwing programs are lowered rather than rejected

Selected C++17 / C++20 / C++23 features

Standard-library coverage

The headers below are modelled by ESBMC’s own operational models and are covered by regression tests under regression/esbmc-cpp*.

Containers and iterators

std::multimap and std::multiset track std::map and std::set, including contains and cbegin/cend.

Strings and streams

Utilities and type support

Algorithms and numerics

Time

<chrono> models duration over any Rep and Period, the nanoseconds … hours typedefs, duration_cast, and time_point with time_point_cast. Mixed-period arithmetic and comparison go through common_type, so seconds(1) + milliseconds(500) is milliseconds(1500), and the converting duration constructor is implicit only where the conversion cannot truncate ([time.duration.cons] p2). duration::zero / min / max, time_point::min / max, treat_as_floating_point and duration_values are there as well. std::ratio — reduced per [ratio.ratio] p1, with ratio_multiply, ratio_divide and the nano / micro / milli aliases — is declared by <chrono> itself, which also pulls in <ctime> for system_clock::to_time_t and from_time_t.

system_clock, steady_clock and high_resolution_clock (an alias for steady_clock) share one tick counter that advances by a non-negative nondeterministic step. A reading is therefore unconstrained rather than a fixed constant, while steady_clock still satisfies [time.clock.steady] — it never runs backwards between two now() calls. system_clock::period follows the target’s standard library — nanoseconds on Linux, microseconds on Apple platforms, 100 ns on Windows — because the point at which the representation saturates is observable in verification.

Concurrency

<thread>, <mutex>, <shared_mutex> and <condition_variable> are lowered onto ESBMC’s pthread model, so interleaving exploration, deadlock detection and data-race detection apply to std::thread programs. <shared_mutex> sits on the pthread rwlock model, giving shared_mutex, shared_timed_mutex, shared_lock and the shared/exclusive locking split. std::this_thread and std::hash<std::thread::id> are available. std::promise and std::future are modelled on the same basis, and <atomic> is modelled with atomic sections.

C library headers

<cassert>, <cctype>, <cerrno>, <cfloat>, <ciso646>, <climits>, <clocale>, <cmath>, <csetjmp>, <csignal>, <cstdarg>, <cstddef>, <cstdint>, <cstdio>, <cstdlib>, <cstring>, <ctime> and <cwchar> are available.

Their names are declared in namespace std as the standard requires, not only in the global namespace: std::isalpha, std::tolower, std::time, std::setlocale, the C99 <cmath> functions (std::fabs, std::sqrt, std::fmod, …), the strto* family, and div / ldiv / lldiv all resolve.

Standard-version guards

<compare> is includable before C++20; <bit>, <span> and <expected> are guarded by standard version; <array> is usable in C++11; and <limits> works under every mode from --std c++03 up.

Under --std c++03 the headers that postdate C++03 — <any>, <chrono>, <filesystem>, <initializer_list>, <optional>, <random>, <source_location>, <string_view>, <unordered_map>, <unordered_set> and <variant> — are inert rather than a parse error, so one can sit in a translation unit that only uses the C++03 headers. Using the type it declares is still an error in that mode.

Not modelled

The following standard headers have no operational model. Including one either fails to resolve, or falls through to your host header under --mix-cpp-host-headers — in which case ESBMC has to verify the real implementation, which is frequently intractable.

<forward_list>, <regex>, <ranges>, <format>, <concepts>, <coroutine>, <charconv>, <numbers>, <ratio>, <typeindex>, <barrier>, <latch>, <semaphore>, <stop_token>, <syncstream>, <execution>, <memory_resource>, <scoped_allocator>, <cwctype>, <cfenv>, <cinttypes>.

Note that <concepts> being unmodelled does not affect the language feature — concepts and requires clauses are supported, as listed above. Likewise <ratio> is not includable, but std::ratio and its arithmetic aliases are declared by <chrono> — see Time.

Current status

Feature support is tracked on the issue tracker under the C++ label. For the current pass rate, run the esbmc-cpp* regression suites or consult the CI results.

Maintainers: see C++ Workflow and Resources for benchmark tracking and the development workflow.