Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

4-2024

Abstract

Dead Code Elimination (DCE) is a fundamental compiler optimization technique that removes dead code (e.g., unreachable or reachable but whose results are unused) in the program to produce smaller or faster executables. However, since compiler optimizations are typically aggressively performed and there are complex relationships/interplay among a vast number of compiler optimizations (including DCE), it is not known whether DCE is indeed correctly performed and will only delete dead code in practice. In this study, we open a new research problem to investigate: can DCE happen to erroneously delete live code? To tackle this problem, we design a new approach named Xdead, which leverages differential testing, static binary analysis, and dynamic symbolic execution techniques, to detect miscompilation bugs caused by the erroneously deleted live code. Preliminary evaluation shows that Xdead can identify many divergent portions indicating erroneously deleted live code and finally detect two such miscompilation bugs in LLVM compilers. Our findings call for more attention to the potential issues in existing DCE implementations and more conservative strategies when designing new DCE-related compiler optimizations.

Keywords

program analysis, Reliability, software testing, symbolic execution

Discipline

Software Engineering

Research Areas

Software and Cyber-Physical Systems

Publication

ICSE-NIER'24: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: New Ideas and Emerging: Lisbon, April 14-20

First Page

32

Last Page

36

ISBN

9798400705007

Identifier

10.1145/3639476.3639763

Publisher

ACM

City or Country

New York

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1145/3639476.3639763

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