An Algebra for Control Flow Analysis and Decompilation

From	Mark <federation2005@netzero.com>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	An Algebra for Control Flow Analysis and Decompilation
Date	2012-07-16 18:00 -0700
Organization	Compilers Central
Message-ID	<12-07-015@comp.compilers> (permalink)
References	<09-01-026@comp.compilers:

Show all headers | View raw

This is a follow-up to an article I posted here (2009 Jan 12) titled
"The Magic Algebra -- The Algebraic Approach to Control Flow
Analysis".

http://compilers.iecc.com/comparch/article/09-01-026

I put a PDF version (with a few minor updates and corrections) on
DocStoc under "An Algebra for Control Flow Analysis"

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/124399972/An-Algebra-for-Control-Flow-Analysis

A few notes of commentary following up on the earlier discussion: the
analysis this discusses was originally carried out as part of a
project (a "legacy code rescue") I was carrying out in 2000.

The key part of the process was the DE-compilation from binary into
high-level language code. A critical ingredient in this process just
happens to be the same that appears in any translation process: the
control flow analysis of the objects in the program and their usage.

The algebra is derived from first principles through an infinitary
form of the lambda calculus and leads to some non-trivial and even
counter-intuitive identities and relations.

(The company, itself, went defunct in 2011, apparently a victim of a
hostile takeover, but was resurrected later in 2011)

Back to comp.compilers | Previous | Next — Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

An Algebra for Control Flow Analysis and Decompilation Mark <federation2005@netzero.com> - 2012-07-16 18:00 -0700
  Re: An Algebra for Control Flow Analysis and Decompilation federation2005@netzero.com - 2012-07-20 14:38 -0700

csiph-web