Slicing Programs with Arbitrary Control-flow

Program slicing is a program transformation that is useful in program debugging, program maintenance, and other applications that involve understanding program behavior. Given a program point p and a set of variables V, the goal of slicing is to create a projection of the program (by eliminating some statements), such that the projection and the original program compute the same values for all variables in V at point p. This paper addresses the problem of slicing programs with arbitrary control flow. Previous slicing algorithms do not always form semantically correct program projections when applied to such programs. We present an algorithm for slicing programs with complex control flow and a proof of its correctness. Our algorithm works for programs with completely arbitrary control flow, including irreducible control flow.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1993
• Where: AADEBUG
• Authors: Thomas Ball, Susan Horwitz
• Keywords: AADEBUG 1993, Arbitrary Control, Program Debugging, Program Slicing, Software Engineering