19,154 research outputs found
A Separation Logic for Heap Space under Garbage Collection
International audienceWe present SLâ, a Separation Logic that allows controlling the heap space consumption of a program in the presence of dynamic memory allocation and garbage collection. A user of the logic works with space credits, a resource that is consumed when an object is allocated and produced when a group of objects is logically deallocated, that is, when the user is able to prove that it has become unreachable and therefore can be collected. To prove such a fact, the user maintains pointed-by assertions that record the immediate predecessors of every object. Our calculus, SpaceLang, has mutable state, shared-memory concurrency, and code pointers. We prove that SLâ is sound and present several simple examples of its use
Heap Abstractions for Static Analysis
Heap data is potentially unbounded and seemingly arbitrary. As a consequence,
unlike stack and static memory, heap memory cannot be abstracted directly in
terms of a fixed set of source variable names appearing in the program being
analysed. This makes it an interesting topic of study and there is an abundance
of literature employing heap abstractions. Although most studies have addressed
similar concerns, their formulations and formalisms often seem dissimilar and
some times even unrelated. Thus, the insights gained in one description of heap
abstraction may not directly carry over to some other description. This survey
is a result of our quest for a unifying theme in the existing descriptions of
heap abstractions. In particular, our interest lies in the abstractions and not
in the algorithms that construct them.
In our search of a unified theme, we view a heap abstraction as consisting of
two features: a heap model to represent the heap memory and a summarization
technique for bounding the heap representation. We classify the models as
storeless, store based, and hybrid. We describe various summarization
techniques based on k-limiting, allocation sites, patterns, variables, other
generic instrumentation predicates, and higher-order logics. This approach
allows us to compare the insights of a large number of seemingly dissimilar
heap abstractions and also paves way for creating new abstractions by
mix-and-match of models and summarization techniques.Comment: 49 pages, 20 figure
The Meaning of Memory Safety
We give a rigorous characterization of what it means for a programming
language to be memory safe, capturing the intuition that memory safety supports
local reasoning about state. We formalize this principle in two ways. First, we
show how a small memory-safe language validates a noninterference property: a
program can neither affect nor be affected by unreachable parts of the state.
Second, we extend separation logic, a proof system for heap-manipulating
programs, with a memory-safe variant of its frame rule. The new rule is
stronger because it applies even when parts of the program are buggy or
malicious, but also weaker because it demands a stricter form of separation
between parts of the program state. We also consider a number of pragmatically
motivated variations on memory safety and the reasoning principles they
support. As an application of our characterization, we evaluate the security of
a previously proposed dynamic monitor for memory safety of heap-allocated data.Comment: POST'18 final versio
A simple approach to distributed objects in prolog
We present the design of a distributed object system for Prolog, based on adding remote execution and distribution capabilities to a previously existing object system. Remote execution brings RPC into a Prolog system, and its semantics is easy to express in terms of well-known Prolog builtins. The final distributed object design features state mobility and user-transparent network behavior. We sketch an implementation which provides distributed garbage collection and some degree of tolerance to network failures. We provide a preliminary study of the overhead of the communication mechanism for some test cases
Interacting via the Heap in the Presence of Recursion
Almost all modern imperative programming languages include operations for
dynamically manipulating the heap, for example by allocating and deallocating
objects, and by updating reference fields. In the presence of recursive
procedures and local variables the interactions of a program with the heap can
become rather complex, as an unbounded number of objects can be allocated
either on the call stack using local variables, or, anonymously, on the heap
using reference fields. As such a static analysis is, in general, undecidable.
In this paper we study the verification of recursive programs with unbounded
allocation of objects, in a simple imperative language for heap manipulation.
We present an improved semantics for this language, using an abstraction that
is precise. For any program with a bounded visible heap, meaning that the
number of objects reachable from variables at any point of execution is
bounded, this abstraction is a finitary representation of its behaviour, even
though an unbounded number of objects can appear in the state. As a
consequence, for such programs model checking is decidable.
Finally we introduce a specification language for temporal properties of the
heap, and discuss model checking these properties against heap-manipulating
programs.Comment: In Proceedings ICE 2012, arXiv:1212.345
Uniqueness Typing for Resource Management in Message-Passing Concurrency
We view channels as the main form of resources in a message-passing
programming paradigm. These channels need to be carefully managed in settings
where resources are scarce. To study this problem, we extend the pi-calculus
with primitives for channel allocation and deallocation and allow channels to
be reused to communicate values of different types. Inevitably, the added
expressiveness increases the possibilities for runtime errors. We define a
substructural type system which combines uniqueness typing and affine typing to
reject these ill-behaved programs
Incremental copying garbage collection for WAM-based Prolog systems
The design and implementation of an incremental copying heap garbage
collector for WAM-based Prolog systems is presented. Its heap layout consists
of a number of equal-sized blocks. Other changes to the standard WAM allow
these blocks to be garbage collected independently. The independent collection
of heap blocks forms the basis of an incremental collecting algorithm which
employs copying without marking (contrary to the more frequently used mark©
or mark&slide algorithms in the context of Prolog). Compared to standard
semi-space copying collectors, this approach to heap garbage collection lowers
in many cases the memory usage and reduces pause times. The algorithm also
allows for a wide variety of garbage collection policies including generational
ones. The algorithm is implemented and evaluated in the context of hProlog.Comment: 33 pages, 22 figures, 5 tables. To appear in Theory and Practice of
Logic Programming (TPLP
Ambiguity, multiple streams, and EU policy
The multiple streams framework draws insight from interactions between agency and institutions to explore the impact of context, time, and meaning on policy change and to assess the institutional and issue complexities permeating the European Union (EU) policy process. The authors specify the assumptions and structure of the framework and review studies that have adapted it to reflect more fully EU decision-making processes. The nature of policy entrepreneurship and policy windows are assessed to identify areas of improvement. Finally, the authors sketch out a research agenda that refines the logic of political manipulation which permeates the lens and the institutional complexity which frames the EU policy process
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