title: "A Scalable Mixed-Level Approach to Dynamic Analysis of C and C++ Programs"
authors: Philip J. Guo
venue: Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) thesis, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
year: 2006
footer: "<font color=\"#AA0000\">Charles and Jennifer Johnson Award for Outstanding Computer Science Master of Engineering Thesis</font>"
links:
- <a href="http://groups.csail.mit.edu/pag/fjalar/">Webpage</a>

tweet: Combining source- and binary-level data makes it easier to build tools that analyze C and C++ code

abstract: >
  This thesis addresses the difficult
  task of constructing robust and scalable dynamic program analysis tools
  for programs written in memory-unsafe languages such as C and C++,
  especially those that are interested in observing the contents of data
  structures at run time. In this thesis, I first introduce my novel
  mixed-level approach to dynamic analysis, which combines the advantages
  of both source- and binary-based approaches. Second, I present a tool
  framework that embodies the mixed-level approach. This framework
  provides memory safety guarantees, allows tools built upon it to access
  rich source- and binary-level information simultaneously at run time,
  and enables tools to scale to large, real-world C and C++ programs on
  the order of millions of lines of code. Third, I present two dynamic
  analysis tools built upon my framework -- one for performing value
  profiling and the other for performing dynamic inference of abstract
  types -- and describe how they far surpass previous analyses in terms
  of scalability, robustness, and applicability. Lastly, I present several
  case studies demonstrating how these tools aid both humans and automated
  tools in several program analysis tasks: improving human understanding
  of unfamiliar code, invariant detection, and data structure
  repair.

bibtex: >
  @mastersthesis{GuoMEngThesis2006,
     author = {Philip J. Guo},
     title = {A Scalable Mixed-Level Approach to Dynamic Analysis of {C} and
    {C++} Programs},
     school = {MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science},
     address = {Cambridge, MA},
     month = May,
     year = {2006}
  }