[cfe-dev] Generate the whole program CFG?

[Ted Kremenek]

On Sep 11, 2009, at 4:28 AM, zhunan wrote:

> Hi,all
>
> Since the CFGs generated by clang-cc are for single function,can we
> generate a large CFG for the whole program(we expand the callee's  
> CFG in
> the main function's CFG)?
>
>
> 1.Has clang offered this function?
>
> 2.what we should modify?(It seems that ASTs are also for single
> function)


Hi ZhuNan,

While we plan on supporting interprocedural analysis, there are no  
plans to support building whole-program CFGs.  Clang's CFGs are meant  
to be simple data structure that represent the control-flow within a  
function.

One can simulate a whole program CFG, however, by incrementally  
constructing CFGs for the functions that are analyzed, and having the  
analysis engine track the necessary information for call and returns.   
Any analysis that cares about context-sensitivy of function calls will  
need to do this anyway.  A whole-program CFG also breaks down (or at  
least gets much more complicated) when one considers function pointers  
or any form of dynamic dispatch.

A primary motivation for not constructing whole-program CFGs is that  
it defers to the analysis the decision of what level and kind of inter- 
procedural analysis to perform.  Some interprocedural analyses may use  
summaries, while others may directly simulate a function call by  
"inlining" its effects (i.e., constructing the called function's CFG  
and "stepping into" that function and directly evaluating the effects  
of its statements).

Ted