While efficient new algorithms for interprocedural data-flow analysis have made these techniques practical for use in production compilation systems,a new problem has arisen: collecting and using interprocedural information in a compiler introduces subtle dependence among the proceduresof a program. If the compiler dependson interprocedural information to optimize a given module, a subsequentediting changeto another module in the program may changethe interprocedural information and necessitaterecompilation. To avoid having to recompile every module in a program in responseto a single editing changeto one module, we have developed techniquesto more precisely determine which compilations have actually beeninvalidated by a changeto the program’s source.This paper presents a general recoi-npzlatton test to determine which proceduresmust be compiled in responseto a series of editing changes.Three different implementation strategies, which demonstrate the fundamental tradeoff between the cost of analysis and the precision of the resulting test, are also discussed.

Research in bidirectional data flow analysis seems to have come to a halt due to an impression that the case for bidirectional data flow analysis has been considerably weakened by a plethora of investigations based on decomposability of known bidirectional placement algorithms into a sequence of purely unidirectional components. This paper shows that the approach of decomposability is not general enough in that it derives its power from the simplifying graph transformation of edge-splitting and the favourable nature of flows in partial redundancy elimination (PRE). This follows from the fact that in the absence of edge-splitting, PRE cannot be performed using a sequence of cascaded unidirectional flows. Further, edge-splitting inherently converts data flows involved in PRE into unidirectional flows. In our opinion, this obviates the need of an alternative formulation. We also show that edge-splitting cannot convert data flows involved in "truly" bidirectional data flow problem...

Loss of precision due to the conservative nature of compile-time dataflow analysis is a general problem and impacts a wide variety of optimizations. We propose a limited form of runtime dataflow analysis, called deferred dataflow analysis (DDFA), which attempts to improve precision by performing most of the analysis at compile-time and using additional information at runtime to stitch together information collected at compile-time. We present an interprocedural DDFA framework that is applicable for arbitrary control structures including multi-way forks, recursion, separately compiled functions and higher-order functions. We present algorithms for construction of region summary functions and for composition and application of these functions. Dividing the analysis in this manner raises two concerns: (1) is it possible to generate correct and compact summary functions for regions? (2) is it possible to correctly and efficiently compose and apply these functions at run-time? To address t...

In this paper we present a new approach to elimination based data flow analysis that uses a program representation called the DJ Graph. The skeleton of the DJ graph of a program is the dominator tree of its flowgraph (whose edges are called D edges in this paper), and the tree skeleton is augmented with join edges (called J edges in this paper). Unlike the previous elimination methods, which first reduce a flowgraph to a single node, our approach only eliminate J edges from the DJ graph in a bottom-up fashion during the reduction process, while maintainting the dominator tree structure (which may be compressed). We propose two methods for eliminating variables: (1) eager elimination method, and (2) delayed elimination method. With eager elimination, we first perform variable elimination on the DJ-graph in a bottom-up manner. Once we determine the solution for the root node, we propagate this information in a top-down fashion on the dominator tree and determine the corresponding solutio...

Loss of precision due to the conservative nature of compile-time dataflow analysis is a general problem and impacts a wide variety of optimizations. We propose a limited form of runtime dataflow analysis, called deferred dataflow analysis (DDFA), which attempts to sharpen dataflow results by using control-flow information that is available at runtime. The overheads of runtime analysis are minimized by performing the bulk of the analysis at compile-time and deferring only a summarized version of the dataflow problem to runtime. Caching and reusing of dataflow results reduces these overheads further. DDFA is an interprocedural framework and can handle arbitrary control structures including multiway forks, recursion, separately compiled functions and higher-order functions. It is primarily targeted towards optimization of heavy-weight operations such as communication calls, where one can expect significant benefits from sharper dataflow analysis. We outline how DDFA can be used t...

The objective of this thesis is to explore the connections between abstract interpretation and attribute grammars as frameworks in program analysis. Abstract interpretation is a semantics-based program analysis method. A large class of data flow analysis problems can be expressed as non-standard semantics where the “meaning ” contains information about the runtime behaviour of programs. In an abstract interpretation the analysis is proved correct by relating it to the usual semantics for the language. Attribute grammars provide a method and notation to specify code generation and program analysis directly from the syntax of the programming language. They are especially used for describing compilation of programming languages and very efficient evaluators have been developed for subclasses of attribute grammars. By relating abstract interpretation and attribute grammars we obtain a closer connection between the specification and implementation of abstract interpretations which at the same time facilitates the correctness proofs of interpretations. Implementation and specification of abstract interpretations using circular attribute grammars is realised with an evaluator system for a class of domain theoretic attribute grammars. In this system thecircularity of attribute grammars is resolved by fixpoint iteration. The use of finite lattices in abstract interpretations requires automatic generation of specialised fixpoint iterators. This is done using a technique called lazy fixpoint iteration which is presented in the thesis. Methods from abstract interpretation can also be used in correctness proofs of attribute grammars. This proof technique introduces a new class of attribute grammars based on domain theory. This method is illustrated with examples. i ii SUMMARY

Much of the success of data flow analysis has come from a well-developed unified