research-article

DRFX: a simple and efficient memory model for concurrent programming languages

Authors:

Abhayendra Singh,

Todd Millstein,

Madanlal Musuvathi,

Satish NarayanasamyAuthors Info & Claims

PLDI '10: Proceedings of the 31st ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

Pages 351 - 362

https://doi.org/10.1145/1806596.1806636

Published: 05 June 2010 Publication History

Abstract

The most intuitive memory model for shared-memory multithreaded programming is sequential consistency(SC), but it disallows the use of many compiler and hardware optimizations thereby impacting performance. Data-race-free (DRF) models, such as the proposed C++0x memory model, guarantee SC execution for datarace-free programs. But these models provide no guarantee at all for racy programs, compromising the safety and debuggability of such programs. To address the safety issue, the Java memory model, which is also based on the DRF model, provides a weak semantics for racy executions. However, this semantics is subtle and complex, making it difficult for programmers to reason about their programs and for compiler writers to ensure the correctness of compiler optimizations.

We present the DRFx memory model, which is simple for programmers to understand and use while still supporting many common optimizations. We introduce a memory model (MM) exception which can be signaled to halt execution. If a program executes without throwing this exception, then DRFx guarantees that the execution is SC. If a program throws an MM exception during an execution, then DRFx guarantees that the program has a data race. We observe that SC violations can be detected in hardware through a lightweight form of conflict detection. Furthermore, our model safely allows aggressive compiler and hardware optimizations within compiler-designated program regions. We formalize our memory model, prove several properties about this model, describe a compiler and hardware design suitable for DRFx, and evaluate the performance overhead due to our compiler and hardware requirements.

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Cited By

Cogumbreiro TLange JLiew DZicarelli H(2024)Memory access protocols: certified data-race freedom for GPU kernelsFormal Methods in System Design10.1007/s10703-023-00415-063:1-3(134-171)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2024
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Liu LMillstein TMusuvathi M(2021)Safe-by-default Concurrency for Modern Programming LanguagesACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/346220643:3(1-50)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3462206
Zhang RBiswas SBalaji VBond MLucia BLarus JCeze LStrauss K(2020)PeacenikProceedings of the Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems10.1145/3373376.3378485(317-333)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2020
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Index Terms

DRFX: a simple and efficient memory model for concurrent programming languages
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language types
        Concurrent programming languages
        Distributed programming languages
        Parallel programming languages

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cover image ACM Conferences

PLDI '10: Proceedings of the 31st ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 2010

514 pages

ISBN:9781450300193

DOI:10.1145/1806596

General Chair:
Ben Zorn
Microsoft Research
,
Program Chair:
Alex Aiken
Stanford University

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 45, Issue 6
PLDI '10
June 2010
496 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1809028
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2010 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 05 June 2010

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PLDI '10: ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 5 - 10, 2010

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10703-023-00415-0
Liu LMillstein TMusuvathi M(2021)Safe-by-default Concurrency for Modern Programming LanguagesACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/346220643:3(1-50)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3462206
Zhang RBiswas SBalaji VBond MLucia BLarus JCeze LStrauss K(2020)PeacenikProceedings of the Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems10.1145/3373376.3378485(317-333)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3373376.3378485
Liu LMillstein TMusuvathi MMcKinley KFisher K(2019)Accelerating sequential consistency for Java with speculative compilationProceedings of the 40th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3314221.3314611(16-30)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3314221.3314611
Jiang HLiang HXiao SZha JFeng XMcKinley KFisher K(2019)Towards certified separate compilation for concurrent programsProceedings of the 40th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3314221.3314595(111-125)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3314221.3314595
Biswas SZhang RBond MLucia B(2019)Rethinking Support for Region Conflict Exceptions2019 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS)10.1109/IPDPS.2019.00116(1095-1106)Online publication date: May-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/IPDPS.2019.00116
Dolan SSivaramakrishnan KMadhavapeddy A(2018)Bounding data races in space and timeACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3296979.319242153:4(242-255)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3296979.3192421
Roemer JGenç KBond M(2018)High-coverage, unbounded sound predictive race detectionACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3296979.319238553:4(374-389)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2018
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Gogte VDiestelhorst SWang WNarayanasamy SChen PWenisch T(2018)Persistency for synchronization-free regionsACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3296979.319236753:4(46-61)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2018
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DeLozier CEizenberg ALucia BDevietti J(2018)SOFRITASACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3296957.317319253:2(286-300)Online publication date: 19-Mar-2018
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