A Software Tool For The Automatic Generation Of Memory Traces For Shared Memory Multiprocessor Systems

We have developed a software tool which allows for the simulation of parallel programs on shared memory, multiple instruction multiple data (MIMD) machines in the absence of such a machine. Our aim is to obtain a history of requests generated by parallel programs to the shared memory. Specificly, the result of the simulation is a mernory trace which records the history of memory access. The trace contains information such as the time of the request, the identification of the processor making the request, and the specific memory location accessed. The software tool consists of a translator-augmenter which translates and enhances programs written in a parallel version of C into standard C programs which we call trace generators. When compiled and executed as C programs, the trace generators generate static memory traces. These traces can be used to simulate and analyze memory contentions in different memory architectures and to evaluate and compare different parallel algorithms.