A type system for JVM threads

✍ Scribed by Cosimo Laneve

• Book ID: 104325463
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 329 KB
• Volume: 290
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0304-3975
• DOI: 10.1016/s0304-3975(02)00330-4

✦ Synopsis

The current deÿnition of the Java bytecode veriÿer, as well as the proposals to formalize it, does not include any check about the structured use of locks by monitorenter and monitorexit instructions. So code is run, even if critical sections are corrupted. In this paper, we isolate a sublanguage of the Java Virtual Machine with thread creation and mutual exclusion. For this subset, we deÿne a semantics and a formal veriÿer that enforces basic properties of threads and lock and unlock operations. The veriÿer integrates well with previous formalizations of the Java bytecode veriÿer. Our analysis of structured use of locks reveals the presence of bugs in the current compilers from Sun, IBM and Microsoft.