Hydrogen: MVICFG Generator

Table of Contents

• Quick Start Guide:
  • Building Hydrogen
  • Using Hydrogen
• Dependencies
• Documentation
• Questions and Bug reporting:
• Acknowledgment

Quick Start Guide:

It is advised to go through Docs to get an understanding of the project. If you are in a hurry, this will get you set up.

Building Hydrogen

1. Before building the project, make sure the dependencies are met. You can also make use of the docker image, where the environment is already set up for you.
2. Clone Hydrogen from GitHub. If you are using the Docker, you can clone it into /home/Hydrogen/MVICFG folder.
3. Compile Hydrogen with the help of CMakeLists.txt. You can also use GNU Make, if that is the preferred method.
4. Assuming you are using the Docker and Ninja, the steps would be like below. But first install Docker using the recommended method for your system.

# Download and run the Docker from your system.
$ docker run -it --name Hydrogen_Env ashwinkj/hydrogen_env
# The above command will put you inside the Docker Container.
$$ git clone https://github.com/iowastateuniversity-programanalysis/hydrogen /home/Hydrogen/MVICFG
$$ cd /home/Hydrogen/MVICFG
$$ mkdir BuildNinja
$$ cmake -B BuildNinja -G Ninja .
$$ cd BuildNinja
$$ ninja

Using Hydrogen

1. Hydrogen needs both the source code and LLVM IR code to generate MVICFG and output it as MVICFG.dot for visualization.
2. To compile a single file program into LLVM IR code necessary for Hydrogen invoke clang with -O0 -Xclang -disable-O0-optnone -g -emit-llvm -S flag.
3. To generate MVICFG, call Hydrogen with both the LLVM IR and paths to their source files. Hydrogen will generate the diff from the source files to generate the MVICFG.
4. Assuming that you have two versions of Prog.c in two folder Buggy and Correct, the tentative steps to generate MVICFG is shown below.

# In folder Buggy, compile Prog.c into LLVM IR (ProgV1.bc)
$ cd TestPrograms/Buggy
$ clang -c -O0 -Xclang -disable-O0-optnone -g -emit-llvm -S Prog.c -o ProgV1.bc
# Similary in folder Correct, compile Prog.c into LLVM IR (ProgV2.bc)
$ cd ../Correct
$ clang -c -O0 -Xclang -disable-O0-optnone -g -emit-llvm -S Prog.c -o ProgV2.bc

5. Once the LLVM IR are generated, then use Hydrogen to generate the MVICFG.

# Generic Command
$ Hydrogen.out <Path-to-LLVMIR_1> <Path-to-LLVMIR_2> .. <Path-to-LLVMIR_N> :: <Path-to-file1-for-Prog_V1> ..\
 <Path-to-fileN-for-Prog_V1> :: <Path-to-file1-for-Prog_V2> .. <Path-to-fileN-for-Prog_V2> ..
# Command for the above example from BuildNinja folder
$ ./Hydrogen.out ../TestPrograms/Buggy/ProgV1.bc ../TestPrograms/Correct/ProgV2.bc :: ../TestPrograms/Buggy/Prog.c ::\
 ../TestPrograms/Correct/Prog.c

6. A python script BuildSystem.py is provided to ease the process of invoking the Hydrogen executable. It will also rebuild Hydrogen (if necessary) and transfer the resulting MVICFG.dot file into the parent directory. This python script is an example to base your own scripts. You might need to adpat this into bash script if running in Docker.

Dependencies

Hydrogen depends on the LLVM Framework and Boost Libraries. Roughly, the following are required for Hydrogen to build properly

Program	Version
Clang	8.0
LLVM	8.0
Boost	1.69
Cmake	3.14
Ninja	1.9

While slightly older versions for Cmake and Ninja can be used without any problem, using older versions of LLVM Framework and Boost can have unwanted consequences and may even result in build failure.

Documentation

Comments and more details for the program including the class structure with their supporting functions and their purpose can be found in Doc folder. Follow the README.txt inside the folder for more information.

Questions and Bug reporting:

In case of questions about the usage/functionality of the framework or if you want to report a bug, please email hydrogen-mvicfg@iastate.edu. The repository will be updated with more features and bug fixes in time, but there will be a delay in responding to the emails.

Acknowledgment

This work is developed under the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award 1542117