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Speed and Precision in Range Analysis

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Programming Languages

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 7554))

Abstract

Range analysis is a compiler technique that determines statically the lower and upper values that each integer variable from a target program may assume during this program’s execution. This type of inference is very important, because it enables several compiler optimizations, such as dead and redundant code elimination, bitwidth aware register allocation, and detection of program vulnerabilities. In this paper we describe an inter-procedural, context-sensitive range analysis algorithm that we have implemented in the LLVM compiler. During the effort to produce an industrial-quality implementation of our algorithm, we had to face a constant tension between precision and speed. The foremost goal of this paper is to discuss the many engineering choices that, due to this tension, have shaped our implementation. Given the breath of our evaluation, we believe that this paper contains the most comprehensive empirical study of a range analysis algorithm ever presented in the compiler related literature.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, UFMG, Brazil

    Victor Hugo Sperle Campos, Raphael Ernani Rodrigues, Igor Rafael de Assis Costa & Fernando Magno Quintão Pereira

Authors
  1. Victor Hugo Sperle Campos
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  2. Raphael Ernani Rodrigues
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  3. Igor Rafael de Assis Costa
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  4. Fernando Magno Quintão Pereira
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Federal do Ceará, Departamento de Computação, Campus Universitário do Pici, Bloco 910, 60356-001, Fortaleza, Brazil

    Francisco Heron de Carvalho Junior

  2. Departamento de Informática, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal

    Luis Soares Barbosa

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Campos, V.H.S., Rodrigues, R.E., de Assis Costa, I.R., Pereira, F.M.Q. (2012). Speed and Precision in Range Analysis. In: de Carvalho Junior, F.H., Barbosa, L.S. (eds) Programming Languages. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7554. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33182-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33182-4_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33181-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33182-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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