A framework to capture dynamic data structures in pointer-based codes

To successfully exploit all the possibilities of current computer/multicomputer architectures, optimization compiling techniques are a must. However, for codes based on pointers and dynamic data structures, these optimization techniques have to be necessarily carried out after identifying the characteristics and properties of the data structure used in the code. We describe the framework and the analyzer we have implemented to capture complex data structures generated, traversed, and modified in codes based on pointers. Our method assigns a reduced set of reference shape graph (RSRSG) to each statement to approximate the shape of the data structure after the execution of such a statement. With the properties and operations that define the behavior of our RSRSG, the method can accurately detect complex recursive data structures such as a doubly linked list of pointers to trees where the leaves point to additional lists. Several experiments are carried out with real codes to validate the capabilities of our analyzer.