Fighting Concurrency Bugs through Effect-Oriented Approaches

在各种类型的软件错误中，多线程并行程序中的并发错误尤为棘手。它们广泛存在，并且由于多核机器的普及而变得越来越严重。现有的并发错误检测方法主要针对并发程序中多线程间的非确定性交互这一复杂的并发错误原因，本课题旨在通过面向效果的方法解决并发错误问题。具体而言，它将提供（1）一个特征研究和深入了解的错误传播过程的真实世界的并发错误：（2）一个面向效果的错误检测和测试框架，可以识别潜在的故障在一个程序，并通过向后分析搜索并发错误导致这些故障;（3）利用上面识别的错误传播信息并向软件开发者建议补丁的错误修复工具;（4）可以指导与多线程并行程序相关的其他工具的一般的面向效果的原理。这项研究将提高我们对并发软件的可靠性问题的理解，提供实质性的工具支持，以帮助降低软件开发和维护成本，并通过更快，更可靠的软件在广泛的平台上改善软件用户的日常体验。

Among all types of software bugs, concurrency bugs in multi-threaded parallel programs are especially troublesome. They widely exist and are becoming increasingly severe due to the pervasiveness of multi-core machines. Existing approaches to detecting concurrency bugs mostly struggle at the complicated cause of concurrency bugs --- non-deterministic interaction among multiple threads in concurrent programs.This project aims to address the concurrency bug problem through an effect-oriented approach. Specifically, it will provide (1) a characteristic study and a deep understanding of the error propagation process of real-world concurrency bugs; (2) an effect-oriented bug detection and testing framework that can identify potential failures in a program and search for concurrency bugs leading to these failures through backward analysis; (3) a bug-fixing tool that leverages the error propagation information identified above and suggests patches to software developers; (4) a general effect-oriented philosophy that can guide other tools related to multi-threaded parallel programs. This research will improve our understanding of the dependability problem of concurrent software, provide substantial tool support to help lower software development and maintenance costs, and improve software users' everyday experience through faster and more reliable software on a wide spectrum of platforms.