Program Analysis via Graph Reachability

Thomas Reps
University of Wisconsin

This paper describes how a number of program-analysis problems can be solved by transforming them to graph-reachability problems. Some of the program-analysis problems that are amenable to this treatment include program slicing, certain dataflow-analysis problems, and the problem of approximating the possible "shapes" that heap-allocated structures in a program can take on. Relationships between graph reachability and other approaches to program analysis are described. Some techniques that go beyond pure graph reachability are also discussed.

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