research-article

Reducing scheduling sequences of message-passing parallel programs

Authors:

Zheng LiAuthors Info & Claims

Information and Software Technology, Volume 80, Issue C

Pages 217 - 230

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2016.09.003

Published: 01 December 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Context: Message-passing parallel programs are commonly used parallel programs. Various scheduling sequences contained in these programs, however, increase the difficulty of testing them. Therefore, reducing scheduling sequences by using appropriate approaches can greatly improve the efficiency of testing these programs.Objective: This paper focuses on the problem of reducing scheduling sequences of message-passing parallel programs, and presents a novel approach to reducing scheduling sequences.Method: In this approach, scheduling sequences that affect the target statement are first determined based on the relation between a scheduling sequence and the execution of the target statement. Then, these scheduling sequences are divided into a number of equivalent classes according to the execution of the target statement. Finally, for each scheduling sequence in the same equivalent class, the values of the two proposed indexes are calculated, and the scheduling sequence with the minimal comprehensive value is selected as the one after reduction.Results: To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, it is applied to test 12 typical message-passing parallel programs. The experimental results show that the proposed approach reduces 63% scheduling sequences on average. And compared with the method without reduction, and the method with randomly selecting scheduling sequences, the proposed approach shortens 67% and 52% execution time of a program for covering the target statement on average, respectively.Conclusion: The proposed approach can greatly reduce scheduling sequences, and shorten execution time of a program for covering the target statement, hence improving the efficiency of testing the program.

References

[1]

B. Beizer, Software Testing Techniques, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990.

Digital Library

[2]

J.C. Munson, Software Engineering Measurement, CRC Press, 2003.

Digital Library

[3]

S.R. Souza, M.A.S. Brito, R.A. Silva, P.S.L. Souza, E. Zaluska, Research in Concurrent Software Testing: A Systematic Review, ACM, 2011.

[4]

G.L. Chen, Parallel Computing: Structure Algorithm Programming, Higher Education Press, 2011.

[5]

Z.H. Du, S.L. Li, Y. Chen, P. Liu, Parallel programming technology of high performance computing-MPI parallel programming, Beijing: Tsinghua University press, 2001.

[6]

M. Christakis, K. Sagonas, Detection of asynchronous message passing errors using static analysis, Springer, 2011.

[7]

A. Miné, Static analysis of run-time errors in embedded critical parallel C programs, Springer, 2011.

[8]

S.F. Siegel, T.K. Zirkel, Automatic formal verification of MPI-based parallel programs, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, 46 (2011) 309-310.

Digital Library

[9]

C. Flanagan, P. Godefroid, Dynamic partial-order reduction for model checking software, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, 40 (2005) 110-121.

Digital Library

[10]

S. Vakkalanka, M. DeLisi, G. Gopalakrishnan, R.M. Kirby, R. Thakur, W. Gropp, Implementing efficient dynamic formal verification methods for MPI programs, Springer, 2008.

[11]

B. Krammer, M.M. Resch, Correctness Checking of MPI One-Sided Communication Using Marmot, Springer, 2006.

[12]

J.S. Vetter, B.R. De Supinski, Dynamic Software Testing of MPI Applications with Umpire, IEEE, 2000.

[13]

M.Y. Park, S.J. Shim, Y.K. Jun, H.R. Park, Mpirace-check: Detection of message races in MPI programs, Springer, 2007.

[14]

Y. Lei, R.H. Carver, Reachability testing of concurrent programs, IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng., 32 (2006) 382-403.

Digital Library

[15]

R.H. Carver, Y. Lei, Distributed reachability testing of concurrent programs, Concurrency Comput., 22 (2010) 2445-2466.

Digital Library

[16]

S. Shivaprasad, N. Prasad, Unit testing concurrent java programs, Int. J. Comput. Appl., 67 (2013) 41-46.

[17]

G.H. Hwang, H.Y. Lin, S.Y. Lin, C.S. Lin, Statement-coverage testing for nondeterministic concurrent programs, IEEE, 2012.

[18]

R. Ferguson, B. Korel, Generating test data for distributed software using the chaining approach, Inf. Softw. Technol., 38 (1996) 343-353.

Digital Library

[19]

T. Tian, D.W. Gong, Test data generation for path coverage of message-passing parallel programs based on co-evolutionary genetic algorithms, Autom. Softw. Eng. (2014) 1-32.

Digital Library

[20]

Q. Chen, L. Wang, Z. Yang, S.D. Stoller, HAVE: detecting atomicity violations via integrated dynamic and static analysis, Springer, 2009.

Digital Library

[21]

J. Schimmel, K. Molitorisz, A. Jannesari, W.F. Tichy, Automatic generation of parallel unit tests, IEEE Press, 2013.

[22]

M.X. Liao, Z.H. Fan, Deadlock detection in basic models of MPI synchronization communication programs, Acta Electronica Sinica, 36 (2008) 402-407.

[23]

C.S.D. Yang, L.L. Pollock, All-uses testing of shared memory parallel programs, Softw. Testing, Verification Reliab., 13 (2003) 3-24.

[24]

C.S.D. Yang, A.L. Souter, L.L. Pollock, All-du-path coverage for parallel programs, ACM, 1998.

[25]

S. Souza, S.R. Vergilio, P. Souza, A. Simao, A.C. Hausen, Structural testing criteria for message-passing parallel programs, Concurrency Comput., 20 (2008) 1893-1916.

Digital Library

[26]

A. Sen, M.S. Abadir, Coverage metrics for verification of concurrent SystemC designs using mutation testing, IEEE, 2010.

[27]

S.D. Conte, H.E. Dunsmore, V.Y. Shen, Software Engineering Metrics and Models, Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Co., Inc., 1986.

Digital Library

[28]

J. Ferrer, F. Chicano, E. Alba, Estimating software testing complexity, Inf. Softw. Technol., 55 (2013) 2125-2139.

Digital Library

[29]

B.A. Nejmeh, NPATH: a measure of execution path complexity and its applications, Commun. ACM, 31 (1988) 188-200.

Digital Library

[30]

T.J. McCabe, A complexity measure, IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. (1976) 308-320.

Digital Library

[31]

M.H. Halstead, Elements of Software Science (Operating and Programming Systems Series), Elsevier New York, 1977.

Digital Library

[32]

T. Tian, D.W. Gong, Evolutionary generation of test data for path coverage through selecting target paths based on coverage difficulty, J. Zhejiang Univ. (Eng. Sci.), 5 (2014) 22-30.

[33]

M.K. Debbarma, N. Kar, A. Saha, Static and dynamic software metrics complexity analysis in regression testing, IEEE, 2012.

[34]

M. Papadakis, N. Malevris, Mutation based test case generation via a path selection strategy, Inf. Softw. Technol., 54 (2012) 915-932.

Digital Library

[35]

D. Culler, R. Karp, D. Patterson, A. Sahay, K.E. Schauser, E. Santos, R. Subramonian, T. Von Eicken, LogP: Towards a realistic model of parallel computation, ACM, 1993.

Digital Library

[36]

A. Alexandrov, M.F. Ionescu, K.E. Schauser, C. Scheiman, LogGP: incorporating long messages into the LogP modelíone step closer towards a realistic model for parallel computation, ACM, 1995.

[37]

F. Ino, N. Fujimoto, K. Hagihara, LogGPS: a parallel computational model for synchronization analysis, ACM, 2001.

[38]

C.A. Moritz, M.I. Frank, LoGPC: Modeling network contention in message-passing programs, ACM, 1998.

[39]

T.H. Cormen, M.T. Goodrich, A bridging model for parallel computation, communication, and i/o, ACM Comput. Surv. (CSUR), 28 (1996) 208.

Digital Library

[40]

S.E. Hambrusch, A. Khokhar, C 3: An architecture-independent model for coarse-grained parallel machines, IEEE, 1994.

Digital Library

[41]

R. Thakur, R. Rabenseifner, W. Gropp, Optimization of collective communication operations in MPICH, Int. J. High Perform. Comput. Appl., 19 (2005) 49-66.

Digital Library

[42]

K.J. Ottenstein, L.M. Ottenstein, The program dependence graph in a software development environment, ACM, 1984.

[43]

J. Cheng, Slicing concurrent programs-AGraph-Theoretical approach, Autom. Algorithmic Debugging (1993) 223-240.

Digital Library

[44]

D. Pan, Dalian University of Technology, 2009.

[45]

C.Q. Zhong, China University of Mining and Technology, 2014.

[46]

L.P. Ma, The study and use of modern statistical analysis methods(three): Standardization of statistical data-dimensionless method, 03 (2000) 34-35.

[47]

G.L. Chen, H. An, L. Chen, Parallel Algorithm Practice, Higher Education Press, 2004.

[48]

H. Liu, B. Dai, Y. Zhang, W.-B. Zhang, Simple logp model's parameters simulate, J. Univ. Electron. Sci. Technol. China, 34 (2005) 229-232.

Cited By

Tian TWang AYang XGong DHou TYao X(2024)Parallel program testing based on critical communication and branch transformationThe Journal of Supercomputing10.1007/s11227-023-05460-480:1(519-548)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11227-023-05460-4
Gong DSun BYao XTian T(2021)Test Data Generation for Path Coverage of MPI Programs Using SAEOACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/342313230:2(1-37)Online publication date: 3-Jan-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3423132

Index Terms

Reducing scheduling sequences of message-passing parallel programs
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Software defect analysis
        Software testing and debugging

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

Recommendations

Relocation scheduling subject to fixed processing sequences

This study addresses a relocation scheduling problem that corresponds to resource-constrained scheduling on two parallel dedicated machines where the processing sequences of jobs assigned to the machines are given and fixed. Subject to the resource ...
PARALLELIZED DIRECT EXECUTION SIMULATION OF MESSAGE-PASSING PARALLEL PROGRAMS
Parallelized Direct Execution Simulation of Message-Passing Parallel Programs

As massively parallel computers proliferate, there is growing interest in finding ways by which performance of massively parallel codes can be efficiently predicted. This problem arises in diverse contexts such as parallelizing compilers, parallel ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Information and Software Technology

Information and Software Technology Volume 80, Issue C

December 2016

287 pages

ISSN:0950-5849

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © Elsevier B.V.

Publisher

Butterworth-Heinemann

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 December 2016

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

2
Total Citations
View Citations
0
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)0
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 11 Aug 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Tian TWang AYang XGong DHou TYao X(2024)Parallel program testing based on critical communication and branch transformationThe Journal of Supercomputing10.1007/s11227-023-05460-480:1(519-548)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11227-023-05460-4
Gong DSun BYao XTian T(2021)Test Data Generation for Path Coverage of MPI Programs Using SAEOACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/342313230:2(1-37)Online publication date: 3-Jan-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3423132

View Options

View options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents