2010/09/08 by Christopher Earl, Matthew Might, Earl, Christopher +3
Computer Science · #Distributed systems and fault tolerance #F.3.2 #F.4.1 #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Logic, programming, and type systems #Parallel Computing and Optimization Techniques #Programming Languages (cs.PL)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1009.1560
openalex publication_date 2010/09/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Two sinks drain precision from higher-order flow analyses: (1) merging of argument values upon procedure call and (2) merging of return values upon procedure return. To combat the loss of precision, these two sinks have been addressed independently. In the case of procedure calls, abstract garbage collection reduces argument merging; while in the case of procedure returns, context-free approaches eliminate return value merging. It is natural to expect a combined analysis could enjoy the mutually beneficial interaction between the two approaches. The central contribution of this work is a direct product of abstract garbage collection with context-free analysis. The central challenge to overcome is the conflict between the core constraint of a pushdown system and the needs of garbage collection: a pushdown system can only see the top of the stack, yet garbage collection needs to see the entire stack during a collection. To make the direct product computable, we develop "stack summaries," a method for tracking stack properties at each control state in a pushdown analysis of higher-order programs.