H-CFA: a Simplified Approach for Pushdown Control Flow Analysis

H -CFA: A SIMPLIFIED APPROACH FOR PUSHDOWN CONTROL FLOW ANALYSIS by Fei Peng The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2016 Under the Supervision of Professor Tian Zhao In control flow analysis (CFA), call/return mismatch is a problem that reduces analysis precision. So-called k -CFA uses bounded call-strings to obtain limited call/return matching, but it has a serious performance problem due to its coupling of call/return matching with context-sensitivity of values. CFA2 and PDCFA are the first two algorithms that bring pushdown (context-free reachability) approach to the CFA area, which provide perfect call/return mathcing. However, CFA2 and PDCFA both need significant engineering effort to implement. The abstracting abstract machine (AAM), a configurable framework for constructing abstract interpreters, introduces store-allocated continuations that make the soundness of abstract interpreters easily obtainable. Recently, two related approaches (AAC and