Fast and Precise Points-to Analysis

—Many software engineering applications require points-to analysis. Client applications range from optimizing compilers to program development and testing environments to reverse-engineering tools. In this paper, we present a new context-sensitive approach to points-to analysis where calling contexts are distinguished by the points-to sets analyzed for their target expressions. Compared to other well-known contextsensitive techniques, it is faster—twice as fast as the call string approach and by an order of magnitude faster than the objectsensitive technique—and requires less memory. At the same time, it provides higher precision than the call string technique and is similar in precision to the object-sensitive technique. These statements are confirmed by experiments.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: SCAM
• Authors: Jonas Lundberg, Tobias Gutzmann, Welf Löwe
• Keywords: Points-to Analysis, SCAM 2008, Software Engineering, Software Engineering Applications, Well-known Contextsensitive Techniques