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Polynomial Constants Are Decidable

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Book cover Static Analysis (SAS 2002)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2477))

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Abstract

Constant propagation aims at identifying expressions that always yield a unique constant value at run-time. It is well-known that constant propagation is undecidable for programs working on integers even if guards are ignored as in non-deterministic flow graphs. We show that polynomial constants are decidable in non-deterministic flow graphs. In polynomial constant propagation, assignment statements that use the operators +, -,* are interpreted exactly but all assignments that use other operators are conservatively interpreted as non-deterministic assignments.

We present a generic algorithm for constant propagation via a symbolic weakest precondition computation and show how this generic algorithm can be instantiated for polynomial constant propagation by exploiting techniques from computable ring theory.

The work was supported by the RTD project IST-1999-20527 ”DAEDALUS” of the European FP5 programme.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Dortmund, FB 4, LS5, 44221, Dortmund, Germany

    Markus Müller-Olm

  2. Trier University, FB 4-Informatik, 54286, Trier, Germany

    Helmut Seidl

Authors
  1. Markus Müller-Olm
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  2. Helmut Seidl
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science Facultad de Informática, Technical University of Madrid, Campus de Montegancedo, 28660, Boadilla del Monte, Madrid, Spain

    Manuel V. Hermenegildo  & Germán Puebla  & 

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Müller-Olm, M., Seidl, H. (2002). Polynomial Constants Are Decidable. In: Hermenegildo, M.V., Puebla, G. (eds) Static Analysis. SAS 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2477. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45789-5_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45789-5_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-44235-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45789-3

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