Static program analysis

Static program analysis is the analysis of computer software that is performed without actually executing programs (analysis performed on executing programs is known as dynamic analysis). In most cases the analysis is performed on some version of the source code, and in the other cases, some form of the object code.

The term is usually applied to the analysis performed by an automated tool, with human analysis being called program understanding, program comprehension, or code review. Software inspections and Software walkthroughs are also used in the latter case.

Rationale

The sophistication of the analysis performed by tools varies from those that only consider the behavior of individual statements and declarations, to those that include the complete source code of a program in their analysis. The uses of the information obtained from the analysis vary from highlighting possible coding errors (e.g., the lint tool) to formal methods that mathematically prove properties about a given program (e.g., its behavior matches that of its specification).

Program analysis

In computer science, program analysis is the process of automatically analyzing the behavior of computer programs regarding a property such as correctness, robustness, safety and liveness. Program analysis focuses on two major areas: program optimization and program correctness. The first focuses on improving the program’s performance while reducing the resource usage while the latter focuses on ensuring that the program does what It is supposed to do.

Program analysis can be performed without executing the program (static program analysis), during runtime (dynamic program analysis) or in a combination of both.

Static program analysis

Static analysis can discover vulnerabilities during the development phase of the program. These vulnerabilities are easier to correct than the ones found during the testing phase since static analysis leads to the root of the vulnerability. Due to static analysis being computationally undecidable, the mechanism are either too permissive or incomplete. Despite their limitations the first might reduce the number of vulnerabilities while the second can give strong assurance of the lack of vulnerabilities.

Program analysis (disambiguation)

Program analysis may refer to: