Scalable Detection of Floating-point Errors via Adaptive Parallel Subdomain Search

Abstract

Floating-point error detection is crucial in numerical computing, particularly for multi-parameter functions where even minor errors can propagate and significantly impact results. The sparse distribution of floating-point errors poses a significant detection challenge, as significant deviations are triggered by only rare inputs. Existing search algorithms face two major limitations: poor scalability for multi-parameter functions and insufficient utilization of floating-point representation characteristics. To address these challenges, we propose SDPS (Scalable Detection via Parallel Subdomain Search), a novel algorithm that combines adaptive domain partitioning with floating-point-specific heuristics. SDPS employs a multi-level error classification system and specialized point generation strategies, supported by efficient parallel processing through dynamic task allocation. Our comprehensive evaluation demonstrates that SDPS significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in both detection accuracy and computational efficiency, especially for multi-parameter functions where it effectively addresses the exponential growth of search space that limits existing approaches.

Publication
In Proceedings of the 25th IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security