Syntax-directed construction of Value Dependence Graphs

Abstract

Most software analysis and assessment techniques operate on graph representations of the target software. One of the most common representations is the Program Dependence Graph in one of its many variations. The Value Dependence Graph is an alternative that is more suitable for many types of analyses, including static slicing and many code transformations, such as instruction scheduling and invariant analysis. The authors present a new algorithm that builds Value Dependence Graphs from the parse tree of a program. By generating the Value Dependence Graph from the parse tree, our algorithm is significantly simpler and clearer than previously published algorithms.