A Survey of Modern Compiler Fuzzing

TL;DR

This survey reviews recent research on compiler bugs and fuzzing techniques, emphasizing their importance for software correctness and covering various compiler types including traditional, domain-specific, and deep learning compilers.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of compiler bug analysis and fuzzing methods, highlighting research gaps and future opportunities in compiler correctness testing.

Findings

Compiler correctness is critical for reliable software.

Research has expanded from traditional to domain-specific compilers.

Open challenges remain in bug detection and fuzzing techniques.

Abstract

Most software that runs on computers undergoes processing by compilers. Since compilers constitute the fundamental infrastructure of software development, their correctness is paramount. Over the years, researchers have invested in analyzing, understanding, and characterizing the bug features over mainstream compilers. These studies have demonstrated that compilers correctness requires greater research attention, and they also pave the way for compiler fuzzing. To improve compilers correctness, researchers have proposed numerous compiler fuzzing techniques. These techniques were initially developed for testing traditional compilers such as GCC/LLVM and have since been generalized to test various newly developed, domain-specific compilers, such as graphics shader compilers and deep learning (DL) compilers. In this survey, we provide a comprehensive summary of the research efforts for understanding and addressing compilers defects. Specifically, this survey mainly covers two aspects. First, it covers researchers investigation and expertise on compilers bugs, such as their symptoms and root causes. The compiler bug studies cover GCC/LLVM, JVM compilers, and DL compilers. In addition, it covers researchers efforts in designing fuzzing techniques, including constructing test programs and designing test oracles. Besides discussing the existing work, this survey outlines several open challenges and highlights research opportunities.