CIL: Intermediate language and tools for analysis and transformation of C programs

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CIL: Intermediate language and tools for analysis and transformation of C programs (2002)

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by George C. Necula , Scott Mcpeak , Shree P. Rahul , Westley Weimer

Venue:	In International Conference on Compiler Construction
Citations:	528 - 11 self

BibTeX

@INPROCEEDINGS{Necula02cil:intermediate,
    author = {George C. Necula and Scott Mcpeak and Shree P. Rahul and Westley Weimer},
    title = {CIL: Intermediate language and tools for analysis and transformation of C programs},
    booktitle = {In International Conference on Compiler Construction},
    year = {2002},
    pages = {213--228}
}

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Abstract

Abstract. This paper describes the CIntermediate Language: a highlevel representation along with a set of tools that permit easy analysis and source-to-source transformation of C programs. Compared to C, CIL has fewer constructs. It breaks down certain complicated constructs of C into simpler ones, and thus it works at a lower level than abstract-syntax trees. But CIL is also more high-level than typical intermediate languages (e.g., three-address code) designed for compilation. As a result, what we have is a representation that makes it easy to analyze and manipulate C programs, and emit them in a form that resembles the original source. Moreover, it comes with a front-end that translates to CIL not only ANSI C programs but also those using Microsoft C or GNU C extensions. We describe the structure of CIL with a focus on how it disambiguates those features of C that we found to be most confusing for program analysis and transformation. We also describe a whole-program merger based on structural type equality, allowing a complete project to be viewed as a single compilation unit. As a representative application of CIL, we show a transformation aimed at making code immune to stack-smashing attacks. We are currently using CIL as part of a system that analyzes and instruments C programs with run-time checks to ensure type safety. CIL has served us very well in this project, and we believe it can usefully be applied in other situations as well. 1

Keyphrases

intermediate language cintermediate language whole-program merger abstract-syntax tree type safety easy analysis stack-smashing attack original source program analysis highlevel representation instrument program run-time check complete project certain complicated construct structural type equality ansi program gnu extension three-address code single compilation unit simpler one typical intermediate language representative application code immune source-to-source transformation

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