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Symbolic MRD: Dynamic Memory, Undefined Behaviour, and Extrinsic Choice

Richards, Jay, Wright, Daniel, Cooksey, Simon, Batty, Mark (2025) Symbolic MRD: Dynamic Memory, Undefined Behaviour, and Extrinsic Choice. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, 9 (OOPSLA). pp. 1858-1882. ISSN 2475-1421. (doi:10.1145/3721089) (KAR id:110436)

Abstract

We present the first thin-air free memory model that admits compiler optimisations that aggressively leverage knowledge from alias analysis, an assumption of freedom from undefined behaviour, and from the extrinsic choices of real implementations such as over-alignment. Our model has tooling support with state-of-the-art performance, executing a battery of tests orders of magnitude quicker than other executable thin-air free semantics. The model integrates with the C/C++ memory model through an exportable semantic dependency relation, it allows standard compilation mappings for atomics, and it matches all tests in the recently published desiderata for C/C++ from the ISO.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1145/3721089
Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics (inc Computing science)
Institutional Unit: Schools > School of Computing
Former Institutional Unit:
There are no former institutional units.
Funders: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (https://ror.org/0439y7842)
SWORD Depositor: JISC Publications Router
Depositing User: JISC Publications Router
Date Deposited: 09 Sep 2025 10:12 UTC
Last Modified: 10 Sep 2025 09:04 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/110436 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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