Dynamic race detection for C++11

Abstract

The intricate rules for memory ordering and synchronisation associated with the C/C++11 memory model mean that data races can be difficult to eliminate from concurrent programs. Dynamic data race analysis can pinpoint races in large and complex applications, but the state-of-the-art ThreadSanitizer (tsan) tool for C/C++ considers only sequentially consistent program executions, and does not correctly model synchronisation between C/C++11 atomic operations. We present a scalable dynamic data race analysis for C/C++11 that correctly captures C/C++11 synchronisation, and uses instrumentation to support exploration of a class of non sequentially consistent executions. We concisely define the memory model fragment captured by our instrumentation via a restricted axiomatic semantics, and show that the axiomatic semantics permits exactly those executions explored by our instrumentation. We have implemented our analysis in tsan, and evaluate its effectiveness on benchmark programs, enabling a comparison with the CDSChecker tool, and on two large and highly concurrent applications: the Firefox and Chromium web browsers. Our results show that our method can detect races that are beyond the scope of the original tsan tool, and that the overhead associated with applying our enhanced instrumentation to large applications is tolerable.