Basic results in automatic transformations of shared memory parallel programs into sequential programs

Yosi Ben-Asher, Esti Stein

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

We study the problem of developing a set of syntax-driven transformations for automatic translation of shared memory parallel programs into sequential programs. The result is a sequential program that is a “refinement” (its execution is consistent with one possible execution of the parallel program) of the original program. Consequently, the problem of debugging parallel programs is reduced to the problem of debugging sequential programs. Moreover, the efficiency of parallel programs can be increased by sequentializing code segments that include extra parallelism. The main difficulty in developing such a system is to preserve the fairness property of any actual parallel execution, which states that no process can wait forever unserved. Thus, non termination of the sequential version (namely an infinite loop) is allowed only if there is at least one fair parallel execution that does not halt as well (i.e., a process that executes an infinite loop whose termination is not dependent on any other process). We show that it is sufficient to consider the case of two sequential programs executed in parallel in order to solve the general case. We then describe several types of transformations and check their ability to preserve fairness. The results, with regards to the existence of such a transformation for general parallel programs are not conclusive; however, we do show that restricted cases (which are likely to appear in the reality) can be sequentialized using this set of transformations. The problem of detecting bad execution sequences is discussed in the last section. In particular, wrong versions of mutual exclusion algorithms are discussed. It is shown that synchronous type of transformations might overlook bad execution sequences of these algorithms. A new type of transformation, which works by nesting parallel while-loops, is developed. Indeed, it is shown that the transformed program reveals the known bug of Hyman's algorithm for mutual exclusion.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAdvances in Computing Science - ASIAN 1997 - 3rd Asian Computing Science Conference, Proceedings
EditorsK. Ueda, R.K. Shyamasundar
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages351-366
Number of pages16
ISBN (Print)354063875X, 9783540638759
DOIs
StatePublished - 1997
Event3rd Asian Computing Science Conference, ASIAN 1997 - Kathmandu, Nepal
Duration: 9 Dec 199711 Dec 1997

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume1345
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference3rd Asian Computing Science Conference, ASIAN 1997
Country/TerritoryNepal
CityKathmandu
Period9/12/9711/12/97

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1997.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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