Abstract
We present two polynomial-time algorithms for automatic verification of deadlock-freedom of large finite-state concurrent programs. We consider shared-memory concurrent programs in which a process can nondeterministically choose amongst several (enabled) actions at any step. As shown in [23], deadlock-freedom analysis is NP-hard even for concurrent programs of restricted form (no nondeterministic choice). Therefore, research in this area concentrates either on the search for efficiently checkable sufficient conditions for deadlock-freedom, or on improving the complexity of the check in some special cases. In this paper, we present two efficiently checkable sufficient conditions for deadlock freedom.
Our algorithms apply to programs which are expressed in a particular syntactic form, in which variables are shared between pairs of processes. The first algorithm improves the complexity of the deadlock check of Attie and Emerson [4] to polynomial in all parameters, as opposed to the exponential complexity of [4]. The second algorithm involves a conceptually new construction of a “global wait-for graph” for all processes. Its running time is also polynomial in all its parameters, and it is more discriminating than the first algorithm. We illustrate our algorithms by applying them to several examples of concurrent programs that implement resource allocation and priority queues. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that describes polynomially checkable conditions for assuring deadlock freedom of large concurrent programs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Aldini, A., Bernardo, M.: A general approach to deadlock freedom verification for software architectures. In: FM 2003. LNCS, vol. 2805, pp. 658–677 (2003)
Arons, T., Pnueli, A., Ruah, S., Xu, J., Zuck, L.D.: Parameterized verification with automatically computed inductive assertions. In: Berry, G., Comon, H., Finkel, A. (eds.) CAV 2001. LNCS, vol. 2102, pp. 221–234. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Attie, P.C.: Synthesis of large concurrent programs via pairwise composition. In: Baeten, J.C.M., Mauw, S. (eds.) CONCUR 1999. LNCS, vol. 1664, p. 130. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
Attie, P.C., Emerson, E.A.: Synthesis of concurrent systems with many similar processes. ACM Trans. Program. Lang. Syst. 20(1), 51–115 (1998)
Attie, P.C.: Synthesis of large dynamic concurrent programs from dynamic specifications. Technical report, NEU, Boston, MA (2003)
Attie, P.C.: Finite-state concurrent programs can be expressed pairwise. Technical report, NEU, Boston, MA (2004)
Biere, A., Cimatti, A., Clarke, E., Zhu, Y.: Symbolic model checking without bDDs. In: Cleaveland, W.R. (ed.) TACAS 1999. LNCS, vol. 1579, pp. 193–207. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
Clarke, E.M., Grumberg, O., Peled, D.: Model Checking. MIT Press, Cambridge (2000)
Clarke, E.M., Enders, R., Filkorn, T., Jha, S.: Exploiting symmetry in temporal logic model checking. FMSD 9(2) (1996)
Coffman, E.G., Elphick, M.J., Shoshani, A.: System deadlocks. ACM Comput. Surv. 3, 67–78 (1971)
Cormen, T.H., Leiserson, C.E., Rivest, R.L., Stein, C.: Introduction to Algorithms, 2nd edn. MIT Press and McGraw-Hill, Cambridge (2001)
Dijkstra, E.W.: A Discipline of Programming. Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs (1976)
Emerson, E.A., Kahlon, V.: Reducing model checking of the many to the few. In: CAD, pp. 236–254 (2000)
Emerson, E.A., Prasad Sistla, A.: Symmetry and model checking. FMSD 9(1/2), 105–131 (1996)
Emerson, E.A., Clarke, E.M.: Using branching time temporal logic to synthesize synchronization skeletons. Sci. Comput. Program. 2, 241–266 (1982)
Godefroid, P.: Partial Order Methods for the Verification of Concurrent Systems. PhD thesis, University of Liege (1994)
Godefroid, P., Peled, D., Staskauskas, M.: Using partial-order methods in the formal validation of industrial concurrent programs. Trans. on Soft. Eng. 22(7), 496–507 (1996)
Godefroid, P., Wolper, P.: A partial approach to model checking. Information and Computation 110(2), 305–326 (1991)
Goessler, G., Sifakis, J.: Component-Based Construction of Deadlock-Free Systems. In: Pandya, P.K., Radhakrishnan, J. (eds.) FSTTCS 2003. LNCS, vol. 2914, pp. 420–433. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Holt, R.C.: Some deadlock properties of computer systems. ACM Comput. Surv. 4(3), 179–196 (1972)
Burch, J.R., Clarke, E.M., McMillan, K.L., Dill, D.L., Hwang, L.J.: Symbolic Model Checking: 1020 States and Beyond. In: LICS, pp. 1–33 (1990)
Knapp, E.: Deadlock detection in distributed databases. ACM Comput. Surv. 19(4), 303–328 (1987)
Ladkin, P., Simons, B.: Compile-time analysis of communicating processes. In: Proc. Int. Conf. on Supercomputing, pp. 248–259 (1992)
Lynch, N.A.: Distributed Algorithms. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco (1996)
McMillan, K.L.: Symbolic Model Checking. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1993)
Peled, D.: Partial order reduction: Model-checking using representatives. In: MFCS (1996)
Rex, B.: Inference of k-process behavior from two-process programs. Master’s thesis, School of Computer Science, Florida International University, Miami, FL (April 1999)
Tanenbaum, A.S.: Modern Operating Systems, 2nd edn. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Attie, P.C., Chockler, H. (2005). Efficiently Verifiable Conditions for Deadlock-Freedom of Large Concurrent Programs. In: Cousot, R. (eds) Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation. VMCAI 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3385. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30579-8_30
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30579-8_30
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-24297-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30579-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)