Summary: Safe Approximation of Data Dependencies in
Pointer­Based Structures
D.K. Arvind and T.A. Lewis
Institute for Computing Systems Architecture,
Division of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh,
Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, Scotland.
dka|tl@dcs.ed.ac.uk
Abstract. This paper describes a new approach to the analysis of de­
pendencies in complex, pointer­based data structures. Structural infor­
mation is provided by the programmer in the form of two­variable finite
state automata (2FSA). Our method extracts data dependencies. For
restricted forms of recursion, the data dependencies can be exact; how­
ever in general, we produce approximate, yet safe (i.e. overestimates de­
pendencies) information. The analysis method has been automated and
results are presented in this paper.
1 Introduction
We present a novel approach to the analysis of dependencies in complex, pointer­
based data structures which builds on our earlier work [AL98]. The input to our
analysis is structural information of pointer­based data structures, and algo­
rithms that work over those structures. We consider algorithms that update

Source: Arvind, D. K. - School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences