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Dynamic shape analysis via degree metrics (2009)
| Venue: | In ISMM |
| Citations: | 17 - 1 self |
BibTeX
@INPROCEEDINGS{Jump09dynamicshape,
author = {Maria Jump and Kathryn S. Mckinley},
title = {Dynamic shape analysis via degree metrics},
booktitle = {In ISMM},
year = {2009}
}
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Abstract
Applications continue to increase in size and complexity which makes debugging and program understanding more challenging. Programs written in managed languages, such as Java, C#, and Ruby, further exacerbate this challenge because they tend to encode much of their state in the heap. This paper introduces dynamic shape analysis which seeks to characterize data structures in the heap by dynamically summarizing the object pointer relationships and detecting dynamic degree metrics based on class. The analysis identifies recursive data structures, automatically discovers dynamic degree metrics, and reports errors when degree metrics are violated. Uses of dynamic shape analysis include helping programmers find data structure errors during development, generating assertions for verification with static or dynamic analysis, and detecting subtle errors in deployment. We implement dynamic shape analysis in a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Using SPECjvm and DaCapo benchmarks, we show that most objects in the heap are part of recursive data structures that maintain strong dynamic degree metrics. We show that once dynamic shape analysis establishes degree metrics from correct executions, it can find automatically inserted errors on subsequent executions in microbenchmarks. These suggests it can be used in deployment for improving software reliability.
Keyphrases
dynamic shape analysis degree metric data structure program understanding dynamic analysis data structure error report error recursive data structure inserted error implement dynamic shape analysis software reliability dynamic degree metric object pointer relationship analysis identifies dynamic shape analysis establishes java virtual machine dacapo benchmark subtle error subsequent execution managed language strong dynamic degree metric correct execution
