Copyright (c) 2013 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
-CDSChecker is distributed under the GPL v2.
+CDSChecker is distributed under the GPL v2. See the LICENSE file for details.
This README is divided into sections as follows:
I. Overview
- II. Reading an execution trace
+ II. Basic build and run
+ III. Running your own code
+ IV. Reading an execution trace
+Appendix
A. References
----------------------------------------
I. Overview
----------------------------------------
-CDSChecker compiles as a dynamically-linked shared library by simply running
-'make'. It should compile on Linux and Mac OSX, and has been tested with LLVM
-(clang/clang++) and GCC.
+CDSChecker is a model checker for C11/C++11 exhaustively explores the behaviors
+of code under the C11/C++11 memory model. It uses partial order reduction to
+eliminate redundant executions to significantly shrink the state space.
+The model checking algorithm is described in more detail in this paper
+(currently under review):
-Test programs should use the standard C11/C++11 library headers
-(<atomic>/<stdatomic.h>, <mutex>, <condition_variable>, <thread.h>) and must
-name their main routine as user_main(int, char**) rather than main(int, char**).
-We only support C11 thread syntax (thrd_t, etc. from <thread.h>).
+ http://demsky.eecs.uci.edu/publications/c11modelcheck.pdf
-Test programs may also use our included happens-before race detector by
-including <librace.h> and utilizing the appropriate functions
-(store_{8,16,32,64}() and load_{8,16,32,64}()) for loading/storing data from/to
-from non-atomic shared memory.
+It is designed to support unit tests on concurrent data structure written using
+C11/C++11 atomics.
-Test programs should be compiled against our shared library (libmodel.so) using
-the headers in the include/ directory. Then the shared library must be made
-available to the dynamic linker, using the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment
-variable, for instance.
+CDSChecker is constructed as a dynamically-linked shared library which
+implements the C and C++ atomic types and portions of the other thread-support
+libraries of C/C++ (e.g., std::atomic, std::mutex, etc.). Notably, we only
+support the C version of threads (i.e., thrd_t and similar, from <threads.h>),
+because C++ threads require features which are only available to a C++11
+compiler (and we want to support others, at least for now).
+
+CDSChecker should compile on Linux and Mac OSX with no dependencies and has been
+tested with LLVM (clang/clang++) and GCC. It likely can be ported to other *NIX
+flavors. We have not attempted to port to Windows.
+
+Other references can be found at the main project page:
+
+ http://demsky.eecs.uci.edu/c11modelchecker.php
+
+----------------------------------------
+ II. Basic build and run
+----------------------------------------
Sample run instructions:
./run.sh barrier/barrier -y -m 2 # runs barrier test with fairness/memory liveness
./bench.sh # run all benchmarks twice, with timing results
+----------------------------------------
+ III. Running your own code
+----------------------------------------
+
+We provide several test and sample programs under the test/ directory, which
+should compile and run with no trouble. Of course, you likely want to test your
+own code. To do so, you need to perform a few steps.
+
+First, because CDSChecker executes your program dozens (if not hundreds or
+thousands) of times, you will have the most success if your code is written as a
+unit test and not as a full-blown program.
+
+Next, test programs should use the standard C11/C++11 library headers
+(<atomic>/<stdatomic.h>, <mutex>, <condition_variable>, <thread.h>) and must
+name their main routine as user_main(int, char**) rather than main(int, char**).
+We only support C11 thread syntax (thrd_t, etc. from <thread.h>).
+
+Test programs may also use our included happens-before race detector by
+including <librace.h> and utilizing the appropriate functions
+(store_{8,16,32,64}() and load_{8,16,32,64}()) for loading/storing data from/to
+from non-atomic shared memory.
+
+Test programs should be compiled against our shared library (libmodel.so) using
+the headers in the include/ directory. Then the shared library must be made
+available to the dynamic linker, using the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment
+variable, for instance.
----------------------------------------
- II. Reading an execution trace
+ IV. Reading an execution trace
----------------------------------------
When CDSChecker detects a bug in your program (or when run with the --verbose
flag), it prints the output of the program run (STDOUT) along with some summary
-trace information. The trace is given as a sequence of lines, where each line
-represents an operation in the execution trace. These lines are ordered by the
-order in which they were run by CDSChecker (i.e., the "execution order"), which
-does not necessarily align with the "order" of the values observed (i.e., the
-modification order and the reads-from relation).
+trace information for the execution in question. The trace is given as a
+sequence of lines, where each line represents an operation in the execution
+trace. These lines are ordered by the order in which they were run by CDSChecker
+(i.e., the "execution order"), which does not necessarily align with the "order"
+of the values observed (i.e., the modification order or the reads-from
+relation).
-Columns:
+The following list describes each of the columns in the execution trace output:
o #: The sequence number within the execution. That is, sequence number "9"
means the operation was the 9th operation executed by CDSChecker. Note that
o Value: For reads/writes/RMW, the value returned by the operation. Note that
for RMW, this is the value that is *read*, not the value that was *written*.
- For other operations, 'value' may have some CDSChecker-internal meaning.
+ For other operations, 'value' may have some CDSChecker-internal meaning, or
+ it may simply be a don't-care (such as 0xdeadbeef).
o Rf: For reads, the sequence number of the operation from which it reads.
[Note: If the execution is a partial, infeasible trace (labeled INFEASIBLE),
projects / c11tester.git / blobdiff