SolSearch: An LLM-Driven Framework for Efficient SAT-Solving Code Generation
The Satisfiability (SAT) problem is a core challenge with significant applications in software engineering, including automated testing, configuration management, and program verification. This paper presents SolSearch, a novel framework that harnesses large language models (LLMs) to discover and optimize SAT-solving strategies automatically. Leveraging a curriculum-based, trial-and-error process, SolSearch enables the LLM to iteratively modify and generate SAT solver code, thereby improving solving efficiency and performance. This automated SAT-solving paradigm has the advantage of being plug-and-play, allowing integration with any SAT solver and accelerating the development or design process of new SAT solvers (new methods). Our preliminary experimental results are encouraging by demonstrating that the LLM-powered paradigm improves state-of-the-art SAT solvers on general SAT benchmarks and significantly enhances the performance of the widely used Z3 solver (11% on PAR-2 score). These results highlight the potential for using LLM-driven methods to advance solver adaptability and effectiveness in real-world software engineering challenges. Future research directions are discussed to further refine and validate this approach, offering a promising avenue for integrating AI with traditional software engineering tasks.
Authors
- Xiangfeng Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1802-4425)
- Lin Ye (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6877-3016)
- Junjie Sheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3766-9870)
- Min Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1938-2902)
- Jianqi Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8993-7603)
- Yanhong Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2102-4303)
- Jiehao Wu
Institutions
- East China Normal University (CN)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2025-04-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1109/icse-nier66352.2025.00007
- Primary Topic
- Formal Methods in Verification
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Research and Development