Programming LAnguages
and StatiC AnaLysis Group

Static Program Analysis

Instructors: Yue Li and Tian Tan

Course Information

Software Analysis or Static Program Analysis is a new course of Nanjing University developed by Yue Li and Tian Tan in Spring 2020. In this course, we will learn about static program analysis, a useful technique for improving the reliability, security and performance of software, and it becomes increasingly impactful in industries nowadays. The course covers two parts: theory and practice. In theory, various materials will be introduced: from the foundations of classical data-flow and pointer analyses to some advanced topics such as security analysis and soundiness. In practice, an educational static program analysis framework called bamboo was designed, on top of which we'll implement a series of assignments including constant propagation, dead code detection, CHA call graph construction, context-insensitive and context-sensitive pointer analyses.

Prerequisites

As prerequisites, you need to understand data structures and algorithms, and to be familiar with a programming language (Java would be better than others as our assignments are implemented in it). Compiler is not a prerequisite despite that understanding it would be preferable. The course is intended for advanced undergraduates as well as graduate students at all levels.

Lectures (Fall 2020)

Date Class Instructor Slides [PDF]
Sep 10 (Thur) Course Introduction Yue Li Introduction.pdf
Sep 17 (Thur) Intermediate Representation Yue Li IR.pdf
Sep 24 (Thur) Data Flow Analysis - Applications I Yue Li DFA-AP (I,II).pdf
Oct 10 (Sat) Data Flow Analysis - Applications II Yue Li See above ฅ’ω’ฅ
Oct 15 (Thur) Data Flow Analysis - Foundations I Yue Li DFA-FD (I,II).pdf
Oct 22 (Thur) Data Flow Analysis - Foundations II Yue Li See above ฅ’ω’ฅ
Oct 29 (Thur) Interprocedural Analysis Tian Tan Inter.pdf
Nov 5 (Thur) Pointer Analysis Tian Tan PTA.pdf
Nov 12 (Thur) Pointer Analysis - Foundations I Tian Tan PTA-FD (I,II).pdf
Nov 26 (Thur) Pointer Analysis - Foundations II Tian Tan See above ฅ’ω’ฅ
Dec 3 (Thur) Pointer Analysis - Context Sensitivity I Tian Tan PTA-CS (I,II).pdf
Dec 10 (Thur) Pointer Analysis - Context Sensitivity II Tian Tan See above ฅ’ω’ฅ
Dec 17 (Thur) Static Analysis for Security Tian Tan Security.pdf
Dec 23 (Wed) Datalog-Based Program Analysis Tian Tan Datalog.pdf
Dec 24 (Thur) Soundness and Soundiness Tian Tan Soundiness.pdf
Dec 31 (Thur) CFL-Reachability and IFDS Tian Tan IFDS.pdf

Assignments

  1. Constant Propagation Analysis (Assignment-1-description.pdf)
  2. Dead Code Detection Analysis (Assignment-2-description.pdf)
  3. Class Hierarchy Analysis (Assignment-3-description.pdf)
  4. Pointer Analysis (Assignment-4-description.pdf)
  5. Context-Sensitive Pointer Analysis (Assignment-5-description.pdf)

Reference Materials

  1. Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (2nd), by Alfred V. Aho, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi and Jeffrey D. Ullman
  2. Static Program Analysis, by Anders Møller and Michael I. Schwartzbach
  3. Principles of Program Analysis, by Flemming Nielson, Hanne R. Nielson and Chris Hankin
We appreciate the researchers in the community of static program analysis for their inspiring lectures and papers, which provide us great materials to build this course.