Maximally permissive deadlock avoidance for multithreaded computer programs (Extended abstract)

Multicore architectures in computer hardware bring an unprecedented need for parallel programming. In the work considered in this presentation, we are especially interested in multithreaded programs with shared data. In this widely- used programming paradigm, "lock" primitives are employed to control access to the shared data within the program threads.In this write-up, we report the progress of an ongoing project, called Gadara1, that seeks to provide a systematic solution to the aforementioned deadlock handling problem. More specifically, Gadara uses discrete event control theory and its specialization in the context of resource allocation in order to detect potential deadlocks and control the run-time execution of the underlying programs in a way that guarantees that these deadlocks never occur.