Program analysis : towards the analysis of CPython bytecode

Abstract

Static program analysis is a collection of static compile-time techniques to predict approximations to a set of values or behaviours which arise during a program’s run-time. These methods generate useful observations and characteristics about the underlying program, in an automated way. PATH (Python Analysis Tooling Helper) is a static analysis tool created in this project. The goals of this project are to create a framework that generates analysis input facts from a function, in addition to an IR that is amenable for further analysis. PATH disassembles and reverse-engineers CPython bytecode into a more straightforward representation, making any further possible analyses a simpler task, as analysis can be conduced on the generated IR. The findings of the project indicate that performing analysis on the IR generated by PATH is indeed a simpler task than generating facts manually and conducting block analysis without such a framework. These results are satisfactory and hold up to the aims of this project.