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Flow-insensitive interprocedural alias analysis in the presence of pointers

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Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing (LCPC 1994)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 892))

Abstract

Data-flow analysis algorithms can be classified into two categories: flow-sensitive and flow-insensitive. To improve efficiency, flow insensitive interprocedural analyses do not make use of the intraprocedural control flow information associated with individual procedures. Since pointer-induced aliases can change within a procedure, applying known flow-insensitive analyses can result in either incorrect or overly conservative solutions. In this paper, we present a flow-insensitive data flow analysis algorithm that computes interprocedural pointer-induced aliases. We improve the precision of our analysis by (1) making use of certain types of kill information that can be precomputed efficiently, and (2) computing aliases generated in each procedure instead of holding at the exit of each procedure. We improve the efficiency of our algorithm by introducing a technique called deferred evaluation.

Interprocedural analyses, including alias analysis, rely upon the program call graph (PCG) for their correctness and precision. The PCG becomes incomplete or overly imprecise in the presence of function pointers. This paper also describes a method for constructing the PCG in the presence of function pointers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, USA

    Michael Burke, Paul Carini & Jong-Deok Choi

  2. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, State University of New York at New Paltz, USA

    Michael Hind

Authors
  1. Michael Burke
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  2. Paul Carini
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  3. Jong-Deok Choi
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  4. Michael Hind
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Editor information

Keshav Pingali Utpal Banerjee David Gelernter Alex Nicolau David Padua

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© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Burke, M., Carini, P., Choi, JD., Hind, M. (1995). Flow-insensitive interprocedural alias analysis in the presence of pointers. In: Pingali, K., Banerjee, U., Gelernter, D., Nicolau, A., Padua, D. (eds) Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing. LCPC 1994. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 892. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0025882

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0025882

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-58868-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49134-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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