Improving Abstract Interpretations by Combining Domains

Michael Codish, Anne Mulkers, Maurice Bruynooghe, María García de la Banda and Manuel Hermenegildo

ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems; 17 (1): 28-44, 1995

Abstract:

Static analysis based on abstract interpretation of logic programs over combined domains is considered. It is known that analyses over combined domains potentially provide more information than obtained by the independent analyses. However, the construction of a combined analysis often requires redefining the basic operations for the combined domain. A practical approach to maintain precision in combined analyses of logic programs which reuses the individual analyses and does not redefine the basic operations is illustrated. The advantage of the approach is that proofs of correctness for the new domains are not required and implementations can be reused. The approach is demonstrated by showing that a combined sharing analysis --- constructed from ``old' proposals --- compares well with other ``new' proposals suggested in recent literature both from the point of view of efficiency and accuracy.

Available: bibtex entry compressed postscript

Michael Codish
The Department of Computer Science
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
PoB 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel
mcodish@cs.bgu.ac.il