Verification of semantic commutativity conditions and inverse operations on linked data structures

We present a new technique for verifying commutativity conditions, which are logical formulas that characterize when operations commute. Because our technique reasons with the abstract state of verified linked data structure implementations, it can verify commuting operations that produce semantically equivalent (but not necessarily identical) data structure states in different execution orders. We have used this technique to verify sound and complete commutativity conditions for all pairs of operations on a collection of linked data structure implementations, including data structures that export a set interface (ListSet and HashSet) as well as data structures that export a map interface (AssociationList, HashTable, and ArrayList). This effort involved the specification and verification of 765 commutativity conditions. Many speculative parallel systems need to undo the effects of speculatively executed operations. Inverse operations, which undo these effects, are often more efficient than alternate approaches (such as saving and restoring data structure state). We present a new technique for verifying such inverse operations. We have specified and verified, for all of our linked data structure implementations, an inverse operation for every operation that changes the data structure state. Together, the commutativity conditions and inverse operations provide a key resource that language designers, developers of program analysis systems, and implementors of software systems can draw on to build languages, program analyses, and systems with strong correctness guarantees.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Deokhwan, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Martin C. Rinard.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/68502

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/68502