Application of formal methods to the development of a software maintenance tool

Abstract

Partial evaluation is an optimization technique traditionally used in compilation. We have adapted this technique to the understanding of scientific application programs during their maintenance, and we have implemented a tool that analyzes Fortran 90 application programs and performs an interprocedural pointer analysis. This paper presents how we have specified this analysis with different formalisms (inference rules with global definitions and set and relational operators). Then we present the tool implementing these specifications. It has been implemented in a generic programming environment and a graphical interface has been developed to visualize the information computed during the partial evaluation (values of variables, already-analyzed procedures, scope of variables, removed statements, etc.).