Abstract:

Software analysis has become complex enough to be intimidating to new students and professionals. It can be difficult to know where to start with over three decades of staggering research in data and control flow analyses and a plethora of analysis frameworks to choose from, ranging in maturity, support, and usability. While textbooks, surveys and papers help, nothing beats the personal experience of implementing and experimenting with classic algorithms.

With support from DARPA, we have developed a graph paradigm enabled with an interactive visual framework to implement and experiment with software analysis algorithms. Parsed programs along with pre-computed data and control flows are stored as a graph database so that analyzers with varying degrees of accuracy and scalability tradeoffs can be easily implemented using a high-level query language. The graphical as well as textual composition of queries, interactive visualization, and the 2-way correspondence between the code and its graph models are integrated through a platform called Atlas. With this machinery, the implementation and visualization effort is reduced as much as 10 to 50 fold, making it much easier to learn about and do research on software analysis algorithms with applications to software safety and security. The tutorial will provide the necessary background, including implementation of widely used algorithms. Participants will learn to prototype several algorithms in a short timeframe.

Venue: 31st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2016), Singapore, September 4, 2016.

Authors: Suresh Kothari, Benjamin Holland

Materials: https://github.com/benjholla/ASE2016