Abstract

This paper concerns the use of program slicing to perform a certain kind of program-specialization operation. The specialization operation that slicing performs is different from the specialization operations performed by algorithms for partial evaluation, supercompilation, bifurcation, and deforestation. In particular, we present an example in which the specialized program that we create via slicing could not be created as the result of applying partial evaluation, supercompilation, bifurcation, or deforestation to the original unspecialized program. Specialization via slicing also possesses an interesting property that partial evaluation, supercompilation, and bifurcation do not possess: The latter operations are somewhat limited in the sense that they support tailoring of existing software only according to the ways in which parameters of functions and procedures are used in a program. Because parameters to functions and procedures represent the range of usage patterns that the designer of a piece of software has anticipated, partial evaluation, supercompilation, and bifurcation support specialization only in ways that have already been “foreseen ” by the software’s author. In contrast, the specialization operation that slicing supports permits programs to be specialized in ways

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