Points-to analysis for Java using annotated constraints

Abstract

The goal of points-to analysis for Java is to determine the set of objects pointed to by a reference variable or a reference object field. This information has a wide variety of client applications in optimizing compilers and software engineering tools. In this paper we present a points-to analysis for Java based on Andersen's points-to analysis for C [5]. We implement the analysis by using a constraint-based approach which employs annotated inclusion constraints. Constraint annotations allow us to model precisely and efficiently the semantics of virtual calls and the flow of values through object fields. By solving systems of annotated inclusion constraints, we have been able to perform practical and precise points-to analysis for Java.We evaluate the performance of the analysis on a large set of Java programs. Our experiments show that the analysis runs in practical time and space. We also show that the points-to solution has significant impact on clients such as object read-write information, call graph construction, virtual call resolution, synchronization removal, and stackbased object allocation. Our results demonstrate that the analysis is a realistic candidate for a relatively precise, practical, general-purpose points-to analysis for Java.

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