Alias analysis on type inference for class hierarchy in Java

  • Authors:

  • Jongwook Woo;Isabelle Attali;Denis Caromel;Jean-Luc Gaudiot;Andrew L. Wendelborn

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA;University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex - France;University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex - France;University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA;University of Adelaide, SA 5005

  • Venue:
  • ACSC '01 Proceedings of the 24th Australasian conference on Computer science
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

The integration of alias analysis with type information increases the precision of alias detection, especially for inheritance among classes. This paper presents a compile-time flow-sensitive context-insensitive alias analysis algorithm with type information for Java. First, we propose an aliased element representation for an object to compute aliases efficiently. Second, the algorithm computes aliases for shadowed variables by regarding constructors as functions. Third, it performs type inference for each reference variable. The inferred type information increases the precision of subsequent alias analysis by building a complete calling graph, not only for overridden methods but also for both shadowed variables and constructors. Fourth, it presents algorithms to compute aliases for each statement. As a result, the precision and efficiency of the algorithm is improved.