NDLI: Dynamic heap type inference for program understanding and debugging

Content Provider	ACM Digital Library
Author	Schulze, Chloë W. Polishchuk, Marina Liblit, Ben
Abstract	C programs can be difficult to debug due to lax type enforcement and low-level access to memory. We present a dynamic analysis for C that checks heap snapshots for consistency with program types. Our approach builds on ideas from physical subtyping and conservative garbage collection. We infer a program-defined type for each allocated storage location or identify "untypable" blocks that reveal heap corruption or type safety violations. The analysis exploits symbolic debug information if present, but requires no annotation or recompilation beyond a list of defined program types and allocated heap blocks. We have integrated our analysis into the GNU Debugger (gdb), and describe our initial experience using this tool with several small to medium-sized programs.
Starting Page	39
Ending Page	46
Page Count	8
File Format	PDF
ISSN	03621340 15581160
DOI	10.1145/1190215.1190225
Journal	ACM SIGPLAN Notices (SIGP)
Volume Number	42
Issue Number	1
Language	English
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Publisher Date	1983-05-01
Publisher Place	New York
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Debugging tools Dynamic type inference Constraints Conservative garbage collection Heap visualization Physical subtyping
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design Software

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Dynamic heap type inference for program understanding and debugging