Retaining Path-Sensitive Relations Across Control-Flow Merges

Preprint, 2003

We present a new value range merge operation that, unlike traditional value range merge operations, preserves arbitrary ordering relationships between program variables. We guide this new algorithm with two data structures that model interobject field relationships, enabling better precision in the analysis of object-oriented programs without prohibitive implementation or run-time costs. We discuss our own implementation of this algorithm in the STLlint static checker, which is able to verify C++ iterator loops that otherwise would require path-sensitive analysis.