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Modelling and Verifying Programs Under the Total Store Order Memory Model in an Algebraic Semantics Style

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The Practice of Formal Methods

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14781))

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Abstract

Modelling and verification of multi-threaded programs are difficult since one must consider all the ways that instructions in different threads can be interleaved. Modern hardware architectures and mainstream programming languages employ relaxed memory models for efficiency purposes, and the additional interleavings from them make the modelling and verification more complex. Total Store Order (TSO) is a widely used relaxed memory model in SPARC implementations and x86 architecture. In this paper, we are committed to proposing a lightweight method for formally modelling and verifying programs under the TSO memory model. Above all, we apply Unifying Theories of Programming (UTP) to investigate a set of algebraic laws, which can dynamically generate configuration sequences of programs under TSO. At the meantime, the information of each configuration is recorded. During this process, we define three properties (including Write-Read Reordering, Read-after-Write Elimination and Barrier) related to the unique features of TSO, and check whether the properties are satisfied. The algebraic laws are implemented in the rewriting engine Maude, and the verification is also conducted in Maude. The verification results show that the properties are all in line with our expectations.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62032024), the “Digital Silk Road” Shanghai International Joint Lab of Trustworthy Intelligent Software (No. 22510750100), and Shanghai Trusted Industry Internet Software Collaborative Innovation Center.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Donghua University, Shanghai, China

    Lili Xiao

  2. East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Huibiao Zhu & Sini Chen

  3. London South Bank University, London, UK

    Jonathan P. Bowen

  4. Southwest University, Chongqing, China

    Jonathan P. Bowen

Authors
  1. Lili Xiao
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  2. Huibiao Zhu
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  3. Jonathan P. Bowen
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  4. Sini Chen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Huibiao Zhu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of York, York, UK

    Ana Cavalcanti

  2. University of York, York, UK

    James Baxter

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Xiao, L., Zhu, H., Bowen, J.P., Chen, S. (2024). Modelling and Verifying Programs Under the Total Store Order Memory Model in an Algebraic Semantics Style. In: Cavalcanti, A., Baxter, J. (eds) The Practice of Formal Methods. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14781. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-66673-5_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-66673-5_11

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