Static Code Analysis - A Behind-the-scenes Look

This presentation examines how static analysis tools inspect program code to find bugs, style issues, and vulnerabilities. It covers syntax trees, bytecode, flow tracking, calls, aliasing, and the limits these create for precision and result quality.

Syllabus

Intro
File & text utilities
Challenge: Cross referencing
Abstract syntax tree
Which identifier refers to what?
Explicit support for all language features
Byte code
Which is the better choice?
Tracking flows
Assignment
Propagators
Conditional flows
Combinatorial explosion
Merging
Combinatorial explosion - Revisited
Merging - Limitations
Loops
Impossible to be precise
Function calls
Recursion
Virtual method calls
Call graph
Flow sensitivity
Aliasing
Framework / Library knowledge
Identifying unique findings
Quality of results
Levels of sophistication
Summary
Outro