{"id":103,"date":"2011-03-24T14:58:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-24T13:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/jseward\/?p=103"},"modified":"2011-03-24T14:58:42","modified_gmt":"2011-03-24T13:58:42","slug":"a-thread-checking-toolkit-for-firefox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/jseward\/2011\/03\/24\/a-thread-checking-toolkit-for-firefox\/","title":{"rendered":"A thread-checking toolkit for Firefox"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in January I blogged about using Helgrind to check for threading errors in Firefox’s JS engine<\/a>.\u00a0 That effort was the first step towards a bigger goal, namely to find and remove all unintended data races in the browser proper.<\/p>\n

I have been wanting to get a point where our C++ developers can routinely use Helgrind to check for threading bugs in code, both new and old, in the same way that Valgrind’s Memcheck tool is now widely used to check for memory errors.\u00a0 For the reasons discussed in my January posting, race checking is more difficult than memory checking.\u00a0 Now, though, I believe we’re approaching the point where routine Helgrinding is feasible.<\/p>\n

I’d like to introduce what amounts to a kit for thread-checking Firefox.\u00a0 The main resource for this is at the MDC page “Debugging Mozilla with Helgrind<\/a>“.\u00a0 Here’s a summary.<\/p>\n

There’s three parts to the kit:<\/p>\n