An abstract domain for objects in dynamic programming languages

EasyChair Preprint no. 1501, version 2

Abstract

Dynamic languages, such as JavaScript, PHP, Python or Ruby, provide a memory model for objects data structures allowing pro- grammers to dynamically create, manipulate, and delete objects’ proper- ties. Moreover, in dynamic languages it is possible to access and update properties by using strings: this represents a hard challenge for static analysis. In this paper, we exploit the finite state automata abstract domain, approximating strings, in order to define a novel abstract do- main for objects. We design an abstract interpreter useful to analyze objects in a toy language, inspired by real-word dynamic programming languages. We then show, by means of minimal yet expressive examples, the precision of the proposed abstract domain.

Keyphrases: abstract interpretation, dynamic programming languages, Objects data-structure, static analysis

@Booklet{EasyChair:1501,
  author = {Vincenzo Arceri and Michele Pasqua and Isabella Mastroeni},
  title = {An abstract domain for objects in dynamic programming languages},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 1501},

  year = {EasyChair, 2019}}