
arXiv: 1912.00429
Pointer analysis is a foundational analysis leveraged by various static analyses. Therefore, it gathered wide attention in research for decades. Some pointer analysis frameworks are based on succinct declarative specifications. However, these tools are heterogeneous in terms of the underlying intermediate representation (IR), heap abstraction, and programming methodology. This situation complicates a fair comparison of these frameworks and thus hinders further research. Consequently, the literature lacks an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of these tools. In this work, we evaluate two major frameworks for pointer analysis, WALA and Doop, on the DaCapo set of benchmarks. We compare the pointer analyses available in Wala and Doop, and conclude that---even though based on a declarative specification---Doop provides a better pointer analysis than Wala in terms of precision and scalability. We also compare the two IRs used in Doop, i.e., Jimple from the Soot framework and IR from the Wala framework. Our evaluation shows that in the majority of the benchmarks Soot's IR gives a more precise and scalable pointer analysis. Finally, we propose a micro-benchmark \emph{PointerBench}, for which we manually validate the points-to statistics to evaluate the results of these tools.
Software Engineering (cs.SE), FOS: Computer and information sciences, Computer Science - Software Engineering, Computer Science - Programming Languages, Programming Languages (cs.PL)
Software Engineering (cs.SE), FOS: Computer and information sciences, Computer Science - Software Engineering, Computer Science - Programming Languages, Programming Languages (cs.PL)
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 0 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Average | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Average |
