Relative debugging and its application to the development of large numerical models

Authors:
David Abramson;Ian Foster;John Michalakes;Rok Sosic
Affiliations:
School of Computing and Information Technology, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia;Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL;Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL;School of Computing and Information Technology, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia
Venue:
Supercomputing '95 Proceedings of the 1995 ACM/IEEE conference on Supercomputing
Year:
1995

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Abstract

Because large scientific codes are rarely static objects, developers are often faced with the tedious task of accounting for discrepancies between new and old versions. In this paper, we describe a new technique called relative debugging that addresses this problem by automating the process of comparing a modified code against a correct reference code. We examine the utility of the relative debugging technique by applying a relative debugger called Guard to a range of debugging problems in a large atmospheric circulation model. Our experience confirms the effectiveness of the approach. Using Guard, we are able to validate a new sequential version of the atmospheric model, and to identify the source of a significant discrepancy in a parallel version in a short period of time.