research-article

Testing and Debugging Distributed Programs Using Global Predicates

Authors:

Brhama DathanAuthors Info & Claims

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Volume 21, Issue 2

Pages 163 - 177

https://doi.org/10.1109/32.345831

Published: 01 February 1995 Publication History

Abstract

Testing and debugging programs are more involved in distributed systems than in uniprocessor systems because of the presence of the communication medium and the inherent concurrency. Past research has established that predicate testing is an approach that can alleviate some of the problems in this area. However, checking whether a general predicate is true in a particular distributed execution appears to be a computationally hard problem. This paper considers a class of predicates called conjunctive form predicates (CFP) that is quite useful in distributed program development, but can be tested efficiently. We develop fully-distributed algorithms to test CFP's, prove that these algorithms are correct, and analyze them for their message complexity. The analysis shows that our techniques incur a fairly low overhead on the distributed system.

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Cited By

Huang H(2009)On Detecting Regular Predicates in Distributed SystemsAutomated Technology for Verification and Analysis10.1007/978-3-642-04761-9_29(397-411)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-04761-9_29
Huang H(2008)Detection of disjunctive normal form predicate in distributed systemsProceedings of the 9th international conference on Distributed computing and networking10.5555/1785854.1785871(158-169)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1785854.1785871
Biyani KKulkarni S(2007)Testing Dynamic Adaptation in Distributed SystemsProceedings of the Second International Workshop on Automation of Software Test10.1109/AST.2007.14Online publication date: 20-May-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/AST.2007.14
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Index Terms

Testing and Debugging Distributed Programs Using Global Predicates
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Software defect analysis
        Software testing and debugging
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Software system structures
      1. Distributed systems organizing principles

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Published In

cover image IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering Volume 21, Issue 2

February 1995

120 pages

ISSN:0098-5589

Editor:
Nancy G. Leveson
Univ. Washington, Seattle

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Copyright © Copyright © 1995 IEEE. All Rights Reserved.

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IEEE Press

Publication History

Published: 01 February 1995

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Cited By

Huang H(2009)On Detecting Regular Predicates in Distributed SystemsAutomated Technology for Verification and Analysis10.1007/978-3-642-04761-9_29(397-411)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-04761-9_29
Huang H(2008)Detection of disjunctive normal form predicate in distributed systemsProceedings of the 9th international conference on Distributed computing and networking10.5555/1785854.1785871(158-169)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1785854.1785871
Biyani KKulkarni S(2007)Testing Dynamic Adaptation in Distributed SystemsProceedings of the Second International Workshop on Automation of Software Test10.1109/AST.2007.14Online publication date: 20-May-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/AST.2007.14
Cook JDu Z(2005)Discovering thread interactions in a concurrent systemJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2004.04.02977:3(285-297)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2004.04.029
Cook JDu ZLiu CWolf A(2004)Discovering models of behavior for concurrent workflowsComputers in Industry10.1016/j.compind.2003.10.00553:3(297-319)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2004
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.compind.2003.10.005
Kshemkalyani A(2003)A Fine-Grained Modality Classification for Global PredicatesIEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems10.1109/TPDS.2003.122505914:8(807-816)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2003
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TPDS.2003.1225059
Chen J(2002)Building test constraints for testing middleware-based distributed systemsProceedings of the 3rd international conference on Software engineering and middleware10.5555/1756361.1756381(216-232)Online publication date: 20-May-2002
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1756361.1756381
Chen LWu I(2002)An Efficient Distributed Online Algorithm to Detect Strong Conjunctive PredicatesIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2002.104940528:11(1077-1084)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2002
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TSE.2002.1049405
Alagar SVenkatesan S(2001)Techniques to Tackle State Explosion in Global Predicate DetectionIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/32.94056627:8(704-714)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2001
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/32.940566
Yen L(2001)Precluding Useless Events for On-Line Global Predicate DetectionsJournal of Parallel and Distributed Computing10.1006/jpdc.2001.174061:8(1077-1095)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2001
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1006/jpdc.2001.1740
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