Cilkscreen™ Race Detector

The CilkscreenTM race detector finds races and localizes them to file, line number, and variable reference with stack traces. The Cilkscreen race detector works against the compiled application. It's a regression-test oriented strategy which mathematically guarantees to find all cases where the result of the parallel execution could differ from the serial version, thereby ensuring parallel correctness.

Cilkscreen assures that your multicore-enabled application is as reliable as the serial original. An application run under the Cilkscreen race detector run 15-25 times slower than real-time. The slowdown is consistent across the run. It does not slow down as the the application executes.

The Cilkscreen race detector can be run standalone, or integrated within Microsoft Visual Studio.

Race Detector Demonstration

In the following application example, Steve Lewin-Berlin, VP of Engineering at Cilk Arts, demonstrates how the Quicksort algorithm is multicore-enabled using Cilk++.  This application demonstrates the Cilk++ keywords and race detector, as well as the performance gain provided by using Cilk++.

At the 6 minutes and 30 seconds mark, Steve demonstrates the Cilkscreen race detector.