Software Error Detection and Recovery Through Software Analysis

Summary

This chapter presents a spectrum of software techniques for uncovering of software bugs through static or dynamic program analysis and runtime detection of hardware/software errors. To deal with common mode errors, diverse execution techniques that execute two different versions of the same program and compare the results can be used. The techniques include N‐version programming, recovery blocks, and static analysis techniques. A given program may have hundreds of thousands of invariants that hold at any point in its execution. The chapter presents a methodology for deriving application‐specific error detectors based on compiler‐based static analysis. It provides a list of benchmark programs and characteristics. In contrast to the detectors derived by static analysis techniques, those derived by dynamic analysis depend on the inputs used to execute the program, which means they are much tighter and provide higher coverage.