A precise demand-driven definition-use chaining algorithm

Abstract

This paper describes a new demand-driven technique that is able to identify both direct and indirect realizable data-dependencies between statements in the investigated code. Our method also involving control-dependencies and can thus be extended to perform precise forward and backward slicing of computer programs. The interprocedural algorithm presented considers realizable program paths when exploring individual definition-use chains by introducing backtrack information for traditional reaching definitions. Hence, our method is able to reveal deep and accurate information about very large programs on demand that makes it effectively applicable in either regression testing, debugging and program analysis.