LocSeq: Automated Localization for Compiler Optimization Sequence Bugs of LLVM

Compiler bugs may be triggered when programs are optimized with optimization sequences. However, diagnosing compiler optimization sequence bugs is difficult due to limited debugging information. Although some techniques (e.g., DiWi and RecBi) have been proposed to automatically localize compiler bugs, no systematic work has been conducted to automatically localize compiler optimization sequence bugs. In this article, we propose LocSeq, a novel technique to automatically localize compiler optimization sequence bugs of LLVM. The core insight of LocSeq is based on the fact that the behaviors of optimizations may be influenced by each other, and thus, the innocent files may be excluded by constructing bug-free optimization sequences. First, given a buggy optimization sequence that triggers a compiler bug, in LocSeq, we transform the problem of the localization for a compiler optimization sequence bug to the problem of the construction for bug-free optimization sequences, which are helpful to localize buggy compiler files. Then, a constrained genetic algorithm is presented in LocSeq to generate a set of bug-free optimization sequences that share similar compiler execution traces with the buggy optimization sequence. Finally, LocSeq leverages a spectrum-based bug localization technique to localize the compiler optimization sequence bug by comparing the execution traces between bug-free optimization sequences and the buggy optimization sequence. To evaluate the effectiveness of LocSeq, we build a benchmark, including 60 optimization sequence bugs of LLVM, and compare LocSeq with the state-of-the-art techniques DiWi and RecBi. The experimental results show that LocSeq significantly outperforms DiWi and RecBi by up to 366.66%/72.27% and 250.00%/56.00% for localizing optimization sequence bugs within Top-1/5 files, respectively.