provide multiple options for trading off concurrent intra-word initial write fidelity with memory and performance

[derekbruening]

From [email protected] on January 14, 2011 16:38:34

packing 2 shadow bits together results in a race if two threads access
adjacent bytes within the same word. this would only be a problem if the
bytes are unintialized and the two threads both write to them: one could
end up remaining uninitialized, leading to false positives

ways to eliminate the race:
a) lock around multi-op for sub-word access in multi-threaded app ("lock
bts" and "lock btr": pretty expensive)
b) byte-to-byte shadowing
c) thread serialization
d) hybrid mapping? but would need sub-word info for majority of memory?

I plan to implement a series of choices for multi-threaded:

1. byte-to-byte: no races but 4x as much memory; suitable for 64-bit and
   many 32-bit apps.
   byte-to-byte should give some perf improvements too.
   dynamic byte-to-byte, switch to 2-bit synch if run out of mem?
2. byte-to-2-bits with synch (probably thread serialization):
   no races but slow; suitable for those 32-bit apps that care about both
   races and memory
3. byte-to-2-bits with no synch: my current impl, suitable for apps that
   want to save memory but aren't worried about potential false negatives
   from concurrent intra-word initial writes

for byte-to-byte register shadows need more TLS: should do DR TLS stuff
first so no resource limits on Windows

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/drmemory/issues/detail?id=271

[derekbruening]

From [email protected] on January 14, 2011 13:47:21

that should be "potential false positives" in #3

[derekbruening]

From [email protected] on June 03, 2014 06:50:41

Issue 1557 has been merged into this issue.

[derekbruening]

From [email protected] on June 03, 2014 06:52:50

Issue 1557 has been merged into this issue.