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Formal verification of concurrent programs with read-write locks

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Abstract

Read-write locking is an important mechanism to improve concurrent granularity, but it is difficult to reason about the safety of concurrent programs with read-write locks. Concurrent separation logic (CSL) provides a simple but powerful technique for locally reasoning about concurrent programs with mutual exclusive locks. Unfortunately, CSL cannot be directly applied to reasoning about concurrent programs with read-write locks due to the different concurrent control mechanisms.

This paper focuses on extending CSL and presenting a proof-carrying code (PCC) system for reasoning about concurrent programs with read-write locks. We extend the heap model with a writing permission set, denoted as logical heap, then define “strong separation” and “weak separation” over logical heap. Following CSL’s local-reasoning idea, we develop a novel program logic to enforce weak separations of heap between different threads and provide verification of concurrent programs with read-write locks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230027, China

    Ming Fu, Yu Zhang & Yong Li

  2. Suzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Science and Technology of China, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Ming Fu, Yu Zhang & Yong Li

Authors
  1. Ming Fu
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  2. Yu Zhang
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  3. Yong Li
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Correspondence to Yu Zhang.

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Fu, M., Zhang, Y. & Li, Y. Formal verification of concurrent programs with read-write locks. Front. Comput. Sci. China 4, 65–77 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-009-0067-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-009-0067-6

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