research-article

Resolving and exploiting the k-CFA paradox: illuminating functional vs. object-oriented program analysis

Authors:

Yannis Smaragdakis,

David Van HornAuthors Info & Claims

PLDI '10: Proceedings of the 31st ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

Pages 305 - 315

https://doi.org/10.1145/1806596.1806631

Published: 05 June 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Low-level program analysis is a fundamental problem, taking the shape of "flow analysis" in functional languages and "points-to" analysis in imperative and object-oriented languages. Despite the similarities, the vocabulary and results in the two communities remain largely distinct, with limited cross-understanding. One of the few links is Shivers's k-CFA work, which has advanced the concept of "context-sensitive analysis" and is widely known in both communities.

Recent results indicate that the relationship between the functional and object-oriented incarnations of k-CFA is not as well understood as thought. Van Horn and Mairson proved k-CFA for k ≥ 1 to be EXPTIME-complete; hence, no polynomial-time algorithm can exist. Yet, there are several polynomial-time formulations of context-sensitive points-to analyses in object-oriented languages. Thus, it seems that functional k-CFA may actually be a profoundly different analysis from object-oriented k-CFA. We resolve this paradox by showing that the exact same specification of k-CFA is polynomial-time for object-oriented languages yet exponential-time for functional ones: objects and closures are subtly different, in a way that interacts crucially with context-sensitivity and complexity. This illumination leads to an immediate payoff: by projecting the object-oriented treatment of objects onto closures, we derive a polynomial-time hierarchy of context-sensitive CFAs for functional programs.

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3656406
Blumschein CNiephaus FStancu CWimmer CLincke JHirschfeld RChristakis MPradel M(2024)Finding Cuts in Static Analysis Graphs to Debloat SoftwareProceedings of the 33rd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis10.1145/3650212.3680306(603-614)Online publication date: 11-Sep-2024
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Smith SZhang R(2024)A Pure Demand Operational Semantics with Applications to Program AnalysisProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36498528:OOPSLA1(1154-1180)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2024
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Index Terms

Resolving and exploiting the k-CFA paradox: illuminating functional vs. object-oriented program analysis
1. Theory of computation
  1. Semantics and reasoning
    1. Program reasoning
      1. Program analysis
    2. Program semantics

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

PLDI '10: Proceedings of the 31st ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 2010

514 pages

ISBN:9781450300193

DOI:10.1145/1806596

General Chair:
Ben Zorn
Microsoft Research
,
Program Chair:
Alex Aiken
Stanford University

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 45, Issue 6
PLDI '10
June 2010
496 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1809028
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2010 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 05 June 2010

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PLDI '10: ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 5 - 10, 2010

Ontario, Toronto, Canada

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3656406
Blumschein CNiephaus FStancu CWimmer CLincke JHirschfeld RChristakis MPradel M(2024)Finding Cuts in Static Analysis Graphs to Debloat SoftwareProceedings of the 33rd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis10.1145/3650212.3680306(603-614)Online publication date: 11-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3650212.3680306
Smith SZhang R(2024)A Pure Demand Operational Semantics with Applications to Program AnalysisProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36498528:OOPSLA1(1154-1180)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649852
Cui SGao YUnterguggenberger RPichler WLivingstone SHuang JGrundy JPollock LPenta M(2023)SmallRace: Static Race Detection for Dynamic Languages - A Case on SmalltalkProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00102(1136-1147)Online publication date: 14-May-2023
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Jeon MOh H(2022)Return of CFA: call-site sensitivity can be superior to object sensitivity even for object-oriented programsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34987206:POPL(1-29)Online publication date: 12-Jan-2022
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Jaiswal SKhedker UMycroft A(2021)A Unified Model for Context-Sensitive Program Analyses:ACM Computing Surveys10.1145/345656354:6(1-37)Online publication date: 13-Jul-2021
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Fachinetti LPalmer ZSmith SWu KYorihiro A(2020)A Set-Based Context Model for Program AnalysisProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-64437-6_1(3-24)Online publication date: 24-Nov-2020
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Germane KAdams M(2020)Liberate Abstract Garbage Collection from the Stack by Decomposing the HeapProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-44914-8_8(197-223)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2020
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