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Verifying Custom Synchronization Constructs Using Higher-Order Separation Logic

Authors:

Suresh Jagannathan,

Matthew J. Parkinson,

Kasper Svendsen,

Lars BirkedalAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), Volume 38, Issue 2

Article No.: 4, Pages 1 - 72

https://doi.org/10.1145/2818638

Published: 04 January 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Synchronization constructs lie at the heart of any reliable concurrent program. Many such constructs are standard (e.g., locks, queues, stacks, and hash-tables). However, many concurrent applications require custom synchronization constructs with special-purpose behavior. These constructs present a significant challenge for verification. Like standard constructs, they rely on subtle racy behavior, but unlike standard constructs, they may not have well-understood abstract interfaces. As they are custom built, such constructs are also far more likely to be unreliable.

This article examines the formal specification and verification of custom synchronization constructs. Our target is a library of channels used in automated parallelization to enforce sequential behavior between program statements. Our high-level specification captures the conditions necessary for correct execution; these conditions reflect program dependencies necessary to ensure sequential behavior. We connect the high-level specification with the low-level library implementation to prove that a client’s requirements are satisfied. Significantly, we can reason about program and library correctness without breaking abstraction boundaries.

To achieve this, we use a program logic called iCAP (impredicative Concurrent Abstract Predicates) based on separation logic. iCAP supports both high-level abstraction and low-level reasoning about races. We use this to show that our high-level channel specification abstracts three different, increasingly complex low-level implementations of the library. iCAP’s support for higher-order reasoning lets us prove that sequential dependencies are respected, while iCAP’s next-generation semantic model lets us avoid ugly problems with cyclic dependencies.

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Cited By

Cook SGarcia P(2022)Arbitrarily Parallelizable Code: A Model of Computation Evaluated on a Message-Passing Many-Core SystemComputers10.3390/computers1111016411:11(164)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2022
Krishna SPatel NShasha DWies T(2022)Automated Verification of Concurrent Search StructuresundefinedOnline publication date: 18-Mar-2022
Blom SDarabi SHuisman MSafari M(2021)Correct program parallelisationsInternational Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT)10.1007/s10009-020-00601-z23:5(741-763)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2021
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Verifying Custom Synchronization Constructs Using Higher-Order Separation Logic
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Concurrent programming structures
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Software functional properties
      1. Correctness
2. Theory of computation
  1. Logic
    1. Proof theory

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems

ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems Volume 38, Issue 2

January 2016

212 pages

ISSN:0164-0925

EISSN:1558-4593

DOI:10.1145/2866613

Editor:
Jens Palsberg
University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2016 Owner/Author.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all 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 third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 04 January 2016

Accepted: 01 August 2015

Revised: 01 August 2015

Received: 01 August 2014

Published in TOPLAS Volume 38, Issue 2

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Cited By

Cook SGarcia P(2022)Arbitrarily Parallelizable Code: A Model of Computation Evaluated on a Message-Passing Many-Core SystemComputers10.3390/computers1111016411:11(164)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2022
Krishna SPatel NShasha DWies T(2022)Automated Verification of Concurrent Search StructuresundefinedOnline publication date: 18-Mar-2022
Blom SDarabi SHuisman MSafari M(2021)Correct program parallelisationsInternational Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT)10.1007/s10009-020-00601-z23:5(741-763)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2021
Krishna SPatel NShasha DWies TDonaldson ATorlak E(2020)Verifying concurrent search structure templatesProceedings of the 41st ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3385412.3386029(181-196)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2020
Krishna SSummers AWies T(2020)Local Reasoning for Global Graph PropertiesProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-44914-8_12(308-335)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2020
JUNG RKREBBERS RJOURDAN JBIZJAK ABIRKEDAL LDREYER D(2018)Iris from the ground up: A modular foundation for higher-order concurrent separation logicJournal of Functional Programming10.1017/S095679681800015128Online publication date: 22-Nov-2018
Krishna SShasha DWies T(2017)Go with the flow: compositional abstractions for concurrent data structuresProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/31581252:POPL(1-31)Online publication date: 27-Dec-2017
Svendsen KSieczkowski FBirkedal L(2016)Transfinite Step-IndexingProceedings of the 25th European Symposium on Programming Languages and Systems - Volume 963210.5555/3089528.3089556(727-751)Online publication date: 2-Apr-2016
Jung RKrebbers RBirkedal LDreyer D(2016)Higher-order ghost stateACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3022670.295194351:9(256-269)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2016
Brookes SO'Hearn P(2016)Concurrent separation logicACM SIGLOG News10.1145/2984450.29844573:3(47-65)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2016
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