Tracking pointers with path and context sensitivity for bug detection in C programs

This paper proposes a pointer alias analysis for automatic error detection. State-of-the-art pointer alias analyses are either too slow or too imprecise for finding errors in reallife programs. We propose a hybrid pointer analysis that tracks actively manipulated pointers held in local variables and parameters accurately with path and context sensitivity and handles pointers stored in recursive data structures less precisely but efficiently. We make the unsound assumption that pointers passed into a procedure, in parameters, global variables, and locations reached by applying simple access paths to parameters and global variables, are all distinct from each other and from any other locations. This assumption matches the semantics of many functions, reduces spurious aliases and speeds up the analysis. We present a program representation, called IPSSA, which captures intraprocedural and interprocedural definition-use relationships of directly and indirectly accessed memory locations. Th...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: SIGSOFT
• Authors: V. Benjamin Livshits, Monica S. Lam
• Keywords: Hybrid Pointer Analysis, Pointer Alias Analyses, Pointer Alias Analysis, SIGSOFT 2003, Software Engineering