Comparison Under Abstraction for Verifying Linearizability

Daphna Amit, Noam Rinetzky, Thomas W. Reps, Mooly Sagiv, Eran Yahav

Abstract: Linearizability is one of the main correctness criteria for implementations of concurrent data structures. A data structure is linearizable if its operations appear to execute atomically. Verifying linearizability of concurrent unbounded linked data structures is a challenging problem because it requires correlating executions that manipulate (unbounded-size) memory states. We present a static analysis for verifying linearizability of concurrent unbounded linked data structures. The novel aspect of our approach is the ability to prove that two (unbounded-size) memory layouts of two programs are isomorphic in the presence of abstraction. A prototype implementation of the analysis verified the linearizability of several published concurrent data structures implemented by singly-linked lists.