A Lightweight Approach to Computing Message Races with an Application to Causal-Consistent Reversible Debugging

TL;DR

This paper introduces a lightweight formalism for modeling message-passing concurrent executions, enabling analysis of message races and issues like deadlocks, with an application in causal-consistent reversible debugging for Erlang.

Contribution

It proposes a novel lightweight trace formalism for message race detection and applies it to enhance reversible debugging in Erlang programs.

Findings

Effective detection of message races and deadlocks

Improved debugging capabilities for concurrent Erlang programs

Demonstrated applicability of the formalism in real debugging scenarios

Abstract

This paper presents a lightweight formalism (a trace) to model message-passing concurrent executions where some common common problems can be identified, like lost or delayed messages, some forms of deadlock, etc. In particular, we consider (potential) message races that can be useful to analyze alternative executions. We consider a particular application for our developments in the context of a causal-consistent reversible debugging framework for Erlang programs