Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sato, Naoto, Katsube, Ryota
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.04266
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866929209367068672
author Sato, Naoto
Katsube, Ryota
author_facet Sato, Naoto
Katsube, Ryota
contents When a bug is detected by testing a quantum program on a quantum computer, we want to determine its location to fix it. To locate the bug, the quantum program is divided into several segments, and each segment is tested. However, to prepare a quantum state that is input to a segment, it is necessary to execute all the segments ahead of that segment in a quantum computer. This means that the cost of testing each segment depends on its location. We can also locate a buggy segment only if it is confirmed that there are no bugs in all segments ahead of that buggy segment. Since a quantum program is tested statistically on the basis of measurement results, there is a tradeoff between testing accuracy and cost. Although these characteristics are unique to quantum programs and complicate locating bugs, they have not been investigated. We suggest for the first time that these characteristics should be considered to efficiently locate bugs. We are also the first to propose a bug-locating method that takes these characteristics into account. The results from experiments indicate that the bug-locating cost, represented as the number of executed quantum gates, can be reduced with the proposed method compared with naive methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_04266
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Locating Buggy Segments in Quantum Program Debugging
Sato, Naoto
Katsube, Ryota
Software Engineering
When a bug is detected by testing a quantum program on a quantum computer, we want to determine its location to fix it. To locate the bug, the quantum program is divided into several segments, and each segment is tested. However, to prepare a quantum state that is input to a segment, it is necessary to execute all the segments ahead of that segment in a quantum computer. This means that the cost of testing each segment depends on its location. We can also locate a buggy segment only if it is confirmed that there are no bugs in all segments ahead of that buggy segment. Since a quantum program is tested statistically on the basis of measurement results, there is a tradeoff between testing accuracy and cost. Although these characteristics are unique to quantum programs and complicate locating bugs, they have not been investigated. We suggest for the first time that these characteristics should be considered to efficiently locate bugs. We are also the first to propose a bug-locating method that takes these characteristics into account. The results from experiments indicate that the bug-locating cost, represented as the number of executed quantum gates, can be reduced with the proposed method compared with naive methods.
title Locating Buggy Segments in Quantum Program Debugging
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.04266