Data dependence analysis of assembly code

Amme, W.; Braun, P.; Zehendner, E.; Thomasset, F.

doi:10.1109/pact.1998.727270

Cited by 17 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Decker and Kastner [7] described a method of reconstructing a CFG from predicated assembly code. Amme et al [1] presented work on a memory aliasing technique, in which data dependency analysis is computed on memory operations using a value-based analysis and modified version of the GCD test [2].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generation of Control and Data Flow Graphs from Scheduled and Pipelined Assembly Code

Zaretsky

Mittal

Dick

et al. 2006

Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing

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Abstract. High-level synthesis tools generally convert abstract designs described in a high-level language into a control and data flow graph (CDFG), which is then optimized and mapped to hardware. However, there has been little work on generating CDFGs from highly pipelined software binaries, which complicate the problem of determining data flow propagation and dependencies. This paper presents a methodology for generating CDFGs from highly pipelined and scheduled assembly code that correctly represents the data dependencies and propagation of data through the program control flow. This process consists of three stages: generating a control flow graph, linearizing the assembly code, and generating the data flow graph. The proposed methodology was implemented in the FREEDOM compiler and tested on 8 highly pipelined software binaries. Results indicate that data dependencies were correctly identified in the designs, allowing the compiler to perform complex optimizations to reduce clock cycles.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generation of Control and Data Flow Graphs from Scheduled and Pipelined Assembly Code

Zaretsky

Mittal

Dick

et al. 2006

Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing

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“…His implementation does not support analysis of programs that use heap-allocated storage. Moreover, his techniques are not able to infer from loop access patterns-as ASI can-that an unstructured cell (e.g., unsigned char z[32] has internal array substructures, (e.g., int y [8]; or struct {int a [3]; int b;} x [2];).…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The two pieces of work that are most closely related to VSA are the algorithm for data-dependence analysis of assembly code of Amme et al [2] and the algorithm for pointer analysis on a low-level intermediate representation of Guo et al [14]. The algorithm of Amme et al performs only an intraprocedural analysis, and it is not clear whether the algorithm fully accounts for dependences between memory locations.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

DIVINE: DIscovering Variables IN Executables

Balakrishnan¹,

Reps²

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Abstract. This paper addresses the problem of recovering variable-like entities when analyzing executables in the absence of debugging information. We show that variable-like entities can be recovered by iterating Value-Set Analysis (VSA), a combined numeric-analysis and pointer-analysis algorithm, and Aggregate Structure Identification, an algorithm to identify the structure of aggregates. Our initial experiments show that the technique is successful in correctly identifying 88% of the local variables and 89% of the fields of heap-allocated objects. Previous techniques recovered 83% of the local variables, but 0% of the fields of heap-allocated objects. Moreover, the values computed by VSA using the variables recovered by our algorithm would allow any subsequent analysis to do a better job of interpreting instructions that use indirect addressing to access arrays and heap-allocated data objects: indirect operands can be resolved better at 4% to 39% of the sites of writes and up to 8% of the sites of reads. (These are the memory-access operations for which it is the most difficult for an analyzer to obtain useful results.)

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“…Many research projects have focused on specialized analyses to identify aliasing relationships [33], data dependences [2,22], targets of indirect calls [31], values of strings [21], bounds on stack height [54], and values of parameters and return values [66]. In contrast, CodeSurfer/x86 addresses all of these problems by means of a set of analyses that focuses on the problem stated above.…”

Section: Codesurfer/x86: a Platform For Recovering Irs From Stripped mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research carried out during the last decade by our research group [64,65,6,56,55,7,8,36,4,49,9] as well as by others [48,22,33,14,2,31,13,44,32,3,54,37,21,46,28,19,16,34,66] has developed the foundations for performing static analysis at the machine-code level. The machine-code-analysis problem comes in two versions: (i) with symbol-table/debugging information (unstripped executables), and (ii) without symbol-table/debugging information (stripped executables).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved Memory-Access Analysis for x86 Executables

Reps

Balakrishnan²

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Abstract. Over the last seven years, we have developed static-analysis methods to recover a good approximation to the variables and dynamically allocated memory objects of a stripped executable, and to track the flow of values through them. It is relatively easy to track the effects of an instruction operand that refers to a global address (i.e., an access to a global variable) or that uses a stack-frame offset (i.e., an access to a local scalar variable via the frame pointer or stack pointer). In our work, our algorithms are able to provide useful information for close to 100% of such "direct" uses and defs.It is much harder for a static-analysis algorithm to track the effects of an instruction operand that uses a non-stack-frame register. These "indirect" uses and defs correspond to accesses to an array or a dynamically allocated memory object. In one study, our approach recovered useful information for only 29% of indirect uses and 33% of indirect defs. However, using the technique described in this paper, the algorithm recovered useful information for 81% of indirect uses and 90% of indirect defs.

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Data dependence analysis of assembly code

Cited by 17 publications

References 19 publications

Generation of Control and Data Flow Graphs from Scheduled and Pipelined Assembly Code

Generation of Control and Data Flow Graphs from Scheduled and Pipelined Assembly Code

DIVINE: DIscovering Variables IN Executables

Improved Memory-Access Analysis for x86 Executables

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