Lambda the Ultimate

Shape Analysis with Structural Invariant Checkers, Bor-Yuh Evan Chang, Xavier Rival, and George C. Necula. SAS 2007.

Developer-supplied data structure specifications are important to shape analyses, as they tell the analysis what information should be tracked in order to obtain the desired shape invariants. We observe that data structure checking code (e.g., used in testing or dynamic analysis) provides shape information that can also be used in static analysis. In this paper, we propose a lightweight, automatic shape analysis based on these developer-supplied structural invariant checkers. In particular, we set up a parametric abstract domain, which is instantiated with such checker specifications to summarize memory regions using both notions of complete and partial checker evaluations. The analysis then automatically derives a strategy for canonicalizing or weakening shape invariants.

I saw a talk by Evan, and thought this approach is fundamentally the right way to go, because the proper sharing behavior of heap data is information that's integral to the design and not at all in the code. So programmers should be able to supply this information to their analyses.