Proof-Directed De-compilation of Low-Level Code

  • Authors:

  • Shin-ya Katsumata;Atsushi Ohori

  • Affiliations:

  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • ESOP '01 Proceedings of the 10th European Symposium on Programming Languages and Systems
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

We present a proof theoretical method for de-compiling low-level code to the typed lambda calculus. We first define a proof system for a low-level code language based on the idea of Curry-Howard isomorphism. This allows us to regard an executable code as a proof in intuitionistic propositional logic. As being a proof of intuitionistic logic, it can be translated to an equivalent proof of natural deduction proof system. This property yields an algorithm to translate a given code into a lambda term. Moreover, the resulting lambda term is not a trivial encoding of a sequence of primitive instructions, but reflects the behavior of the given program. This process therefore serves as proof-directed decompilation of a low-level code language to a high-level language. We carry out this development for a subset of Java Virtual Machine instructions including most of its features such as jumps, object creation and method invocation. The proof-directed de-compilation algorithm has been implemented, which demonstrates the feasibility of our approach.