90% Perspiration: Engineering Static Analysis Techniques for Industrial Applications

Abstract

This article describes some of the engineering approaches that were taken during the development of GrammaTech's static-analysis technology that have taken it from a prototype system with poor performance and scalability and with very limited applicability, to a much-more general-purpose industrial-strength analysis infrastructure capable of operating on millions of lines of code. A wide variety of code bases are found in industry, and many extremes of usage exist, from code size through use of unusual, or non-standard features and dialects.Some of the problems associated with handling these code-bases are described, and the solutions that were used to address them, including some that were ultimately unsuccessful, are discussed.