Compositional shape analysis by means of bi-abduction
Cristiano Calcagno, Dino Distefano, Peter W. O’Hearn, Hongseok Yang · 2009
This paper describes a compositional shape analysis, where each procedure is analyzed independently of its callers. The analysis uses an abstract domain based on a restricted fragment of separation logic, and assigns a collection of Hoare triples to each procedure; the triples provide an over-approximation of data structure usage. Compositionality brings its usual benefits -- increased potential to scale, ability to deal with unknown calling contexts, graceful way to deal with imprecision -- to shape analysis, for the first time.