Isolating Compiler Faults via Multiple Pairs of Adversarial Compilation Configurations

TL;DR

MultiConf is a novel method that isolates compiler faults by using adversarial configuration pairs and spectrum-based fault localization, significantly improving bug localization accuracy and efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces MultiConf, a new approach that constructs adversarial configuration pairs and aggregates suspiciousness rankings to enhance compiler fault localization.

Findings

Successfully localized 27 out of 60 bugs at Top-1 level.

Outperformed existing techniques Odfl and Basic in effectiveness.

Achieved 35.0% and 28.6% improvements over state-of-the-art methods.

Abstract

Compilers are fundamental to modern software development, making the effective identification and resolution of compiler faults essential. However, localizing these faults to specific source files remains highly challenging due to the complexity and scale of modern compiler infrastructures. In this study, we propose MultiConf, a novel approach that automatically isolates compiler faults by constructing multiple pairs of adversarial compilation configurations. Each adversarial compilation configuration pair consists of a failing configuration and its corresponding passing configuration, which differ in only a small number of fine-grained options. MultiConf generates failing configurations through a lightweight construction process and derives the corresponding passing configurations by selectively disabling bug-related fine-grained options. We then employ a Spectrum-Based Fault Localization (SBFL) formula to rank the suspiciousness of compiler source files. Each adversarial configuration pair independently produces a ranking, which is subsequently aggregated using a weighted voting scheme to derive a final suspiciousness ranking, enabling more accurate and robust fault localization. We evaluate MultiConf on a benchmark of 60 real-world GCC compiler bugs. The results demonstrate that MultiConf significantly outperforms existing compiler fault localization techniques in both effectiveness and efficiency. In particular, MultiConf successfully localizes 27 out of 60 bugs at the Top-1 file level, representing improvements of 35.0% and 28.6% over the two state-of-the-art approaches, Odfl(20) and Basic(21), respectively.