research-article

An approach to improving the structure of error-handling code in the linux kernel

Authors:

Gilles MullerAuthors Info & Claims

LCTES '11: Proceedings of the 2011 SIGPLAN/SIGBED conference on Languages, compilers and tools for embedded systems

Pages 41 - 50

https://doi.org/10.1145/1967677.1967684

Published: 11 April 2011 Publication History

Abstract

The C language does not provide any abstractions for exception handling or other forms of error handling, leaving programmers to devise their own conventions for detecting and handling errors. The Linux coding style guidelines suggest placing error handling code at the end of each function, where it can be reached by gotos whenever an error is detected. This coding style has the advantage of putting all of the error-handling code in one place, which eases understanding and maintenance, and reduces code duplication. Nevertheless, this coding style is not always applied. In this paper, we propose an automatic program transformation that transforms error-handling code into this style. We have applied our transformation to the Linux 2.6.34 kernel source code, on which it reorganizes the error handling code of over 1800 functions, in about 25 minutes.

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Cited By

Zhan DYu XZhang HYe L(2023)ErrHunter: Detecting Error-Handling Bugs in the Linux Kernel Through Systematic Static AnalysisIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2022.316015549:2(684-698)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2022.3160155
Jiang ZBai JLawall JHu S(2019)Fuzzing Error Handling Code in Device Drivers Based on Software Fault Injection2019 IEEE 30th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE)10.1109/ISSRE.2019.00022(128-138)Online publication date: Oct-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSRE.2019.00022
Amani SHixon AChen ZRizkallah CChubb PO'Connor LBeeren JNagashima YLim JSewell TTuong JKeller GMurray TKlein GHeiser G(2016)CogentACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/2980024.287240444:2(175-188)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2980024.2872404
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Index Terms

An approach to improving the structure of error-handling code in the linux kernel
1. General and reference
  1. Cross-computing tools and techniques
    1. Reliability
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Extra-functional properties
      1. Software reliability

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

LCTES '11: Proceedings of the 2011 SIGPLAN/SIGBED conference on Languages, compilers and tools for embedded systems

April 2011

182 pages

ISBN:9781450305556

DOI:10.1145/1967677

General Chair:
Jan Vitek
Purdue University, USA
,
Program Chair:
Bjorn De Sutter
Ghent University, Belgium

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 46, Issue 5
LCTES '10
May 2011
170 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/2016603
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 11 April 2011

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LCTES '11

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LCTES '11: SIGPLAN/SIGBED Conference on Languages, Compilers and Tools for Embedded Systems

April 11 - 14, 2011

IL, Chicago, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 116 of 438 submissions, 26%

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Cited By

Zhan DYu XZhang HYe L(2023)ErrHunter: Detecting Error-Handling Bugs in the Linux Kernel Through Systematic Static AnalysisIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2022.316015549:2(684-698)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2022.3160155
Jiang ZBai JLawall JHu S(2019)Fuzzing Error Handling Code in Device Drivers Based on Software Fault Injection2019 IEEE 30th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE)10.1109/ISSRE.2019.00022(128-138)Online publication date: Oct-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSRE.2019.00022
Amani SHixon AChen ZRizkallah CChubb PO'Connor LBeeren JNagashima YLim JSewell TTuong JKeller GMurray TKlein GHeiser G(2016)CogentACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/2980024.287240444:2(175-188)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2980024.2872404
Amani SSewell TTuong JKeller GMurray TKlein GHeiser GHixon AChen ZRizkallah CChubb PO'Connor LBeeren JNagashima YLim J(2016)CoGENTACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review10.1145/2954680.287240450:2(175-188)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2016
https://doi.org/10.1145/2954680.2872404
Amani SHixon AChen ZRizkallah CChubb PO'Connor LBeeren JNagashima YLim JSewell TTuong JKeller GMurray TKlein GHeiser G(2016)CogentACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2954679.287240451:4(175-188)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2954679.2872404
Amani SHixon AChen ZRizkallah CChubb PO'Connor LBeeren JNagashima YLim JSewell TTuong JKeller GMurray TKlein GHeiser GConte TZhou Y(2016)CogentProceedings of the Twenty-First International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems10.1145/2872362.2872404(175-188)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2872362.2872404
Bai JWang YLiu HHu S(2016)Mining and checking paired functions in device drivers using characteristic fault injectionInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2016.01.01873:C(122-133)Online publication date: 1-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2016.01.018
Nagappan MRobbes RKamei YTanter ÉMcIntosh SMockus AHassan ADi Nitto EHarman MHeymans P(2015)An empirical study of goto in C code from GitHub repositoriesProceedings of the 2015 10th Joint Meeting on Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/2786805.2786834(404-414)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2786805.2786834
Bai JWang YLiu HHu S(2015)Automated resource release in device driversProceedings of the 2015 IEEE 26th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE)10.1109/ISSRE.2015.7381811(172-182)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ISSRE.2015.7381811
Liu HBai JWang YBian ZHu S(2015)Pairminer: mining for paired functions in Kernel extensions2015 IEEE International Symposium on Performance Analysis of Systems and Software (ISPASS)10.1109/ISPASS.2015.7095788(93-101)Online publication date: Mar-2015
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISPASS.2015.7095788
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