Abstract
This paper proposes a flow analysis approach to provide accurate flow facts such as number of loop iterations and infeasible paths for WCET analysis. To achieve this, a novel approach to model program flows of given loops as compositional condition of controls that can model the program flow of the sequence of basic blocks on an execution path through a single loop iteration is proposed. The proposed approach builds distinct symbolic expressions each representing a path condition as conjunctions of branch conditions along the path. Then, the path conditions are formed via substituting all constituent variables of the branch conditions with symbolic expressions computing the value of these variables. The final symbolic expression will contain variables denoting theirs value at the loop entry point. Considering the change in the value of the loop variables of the path condition, the feasible values of these variables are computed and consequently the number of the loop iterations along the iteration path is determined. Applying a SMT solver to the symbolic expressions representing each path condition, all the infeasible paths along the loop body are detected. The results of applying our flow analysis approach to a number of programs addressed in the Mälardalen benchmark suite reveal the capability and efficiency of our proposed approach.
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Notes
When we use the term change in value, throughout the paper, we mean the ways a change happens. For instance, clarifying the change in value of variable \(X\) means clarifying how the value of variable \(X\) is changed in the loop body, e.g., the value of \(X\) is added by \(1 (X=X+1)\), the value of \(X\) is multiplied by another constant or variable \(m (X=X*m)\), etc. In other words, it is important to know how the value of a variable is changed in our proposed method.
This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ’A New Approach to Determine Number of Loop Iterations for WCET Analysis’ presented at 8th International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, ITNG 2011, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 11–13 April 2011.
For variable \(x\) and program point \(p\), if the value of \(x\) at \(p\) is used along some path in the CFG starting at \(p\), we say \(x\) is live at \(p\)[1]
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Parsa, S., Sakhaei-nia, M. Modeling flow information of loops using compositional condition of controls. J Supercomput 71, 508–536 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-014-1308-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-014-1308-5