Balancing the Books - Access Right Tracking for C++

Explore a novel approach to program verification through access right tracking in this conference talk from C++Now 2025. Learn how to extend traditional assertion-based verification beyond simple data-dependent rules to handle complex scenarios like uninitialized object access, array bounds violations, double destruction, and thread safety issues. Discover how to implement a comprehensive bookkeeping system that records the information needed to verify compliance with programming rules that assertions alone cannot handle. Examine the limitations of current sanitizer approaches and understand how explicit declarations can eliminate guesswork in code verification across translation units. Delve into the technical details of this bookkeeping system that enables detection of imminent rule violations and prevention of undefined behavior before it occurs. Gain insights from Lisa Lippincott, who designed software architectures for Tanium and BigFix and serves as assistant chair of the numerics study group of the C++ standardization committee, as she presents her research on making computer-checked proofs of correctness a routine part of programming.