|
Thomas W. Reps
Thomas W. Reps (born 28 May 1956, United States) is an American computer scientist known for his contributions to automatic program analysis. Dr. Reps is Professor of Computer Science in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, which he joined in 1985. Reps is the author or co-author of four books and more than one hundred seventy-five papers describing his research. His work has covered a wide variety of topics, including program slicing, data-flow analysis, pointer analysis, model checking, computer security, instrumentation (computer programming), language-based program-development environments, the use of program profiling in software testing, software renovation, incremental algorithms, and attribute grammars. Reps’s current work focuses on static analysis of stripped (binary) executables, and methods that—without relying on symbol-table or debugging information—recover intermediate representations that are similar to those t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved statehood and is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. The main campus is located on the shores of Lake Mendota; the university also owns and operates a arboretum south of the main campus. UW–Madison is organized into 13 schools and colleges, which enrolled approximately 34,200 undergraduate and 14,300 graduate and professional students in 2024. Its academic programs include 136 undergraduate majors, 148 master's degree programs, and 120 doctoral programs. Wisconsin is one of the founding members of the Association of American Universities. It is considered a Public Ivy and is classified as an R1 University. UW–Madison was also the home of both the prominent "Wisconsin School" of economics and diplomatic his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Profiling (computer Programming)
In software engineering, profiling (program profiling, software profiling) is a form of dynamic program analysis that measures, for example, the space (memory) or time complexity of a program, the usage of particular instructions, or the frequency and duration of function calls. Most commonly, profiling information serves to aid program optimization, and more specifically, performance engineering. Profiling is achieved by instrumenting either the program source code or its binary executable form using a tool called a ''profiler'' (or ''code profiler''). Profilers may use a number of different techniques, such as event-based, statistical, instrumented, and simulation methods. Gathering program events Profilers use a wide variety of techniques to collect data, including hardware interrupts, code instrumentation, instruction set simulation, operating system hooks, and performance counters. Use of profilers The output of a profiler may be: * A statistical ''summary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decompiler
A decompiler is a computer program that translates an executable file back into high-level source code. Unlike a compiler, which converts high-level code into machine code, a decompiler performs the reverse process. While disassemblers translate executables into assembly language, decompilers go a step further by reconstructing the disassembly into higher-level languages like C. Due to the one-way nature of the compilation process, decompilers usually cannot perfectly recreate the original source code. They often produce obfuscated and less readable code. Introduction Decompilation is the process of transforming executable code into a high-level, human-readable format using a decompiler. This process is commonly used for tasks that involve reverse-engineering the logic behind executable code, such as recovering lost or unavailable source code. Decompilers face inherent challenges due to the loss of critical information during the compilation process, such as variable names, c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disassembler
A disassembler is a computer program that translates machine language into assembly language—the inverse operation to that of an assembler. The output of disassembly is typically formatted for human-readability rather than for input to an assembler, making disassemblers primarily a reverse-engineering tool. Common uses include analyzing the output of high-level programming language compilers and their optimizations, recovering source code when the original is lost, performing malware analysis, modifying software (such as binary patching), and software cracking. A disassembler differs from a decompiler, which targets a high-level language rather than an assembly language. Assembly language source code generally permits the use of constants and programmer comments. These are usually removed from the assembled machine code by the assembler. If so, a disassembler operating on the machine code would produce disassembly lacking these constants and comments; the disassembled outpu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-level Language
A high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language ''elements'', be easier to use, or may automate (or even hide entirely) significant areas of computing systems (e.g. memory management), making the process of developing a program simpler and more understandable than when using a lower-level language. The amount of abstraction provided defines how "high-level" a programming language is. In the 1960s, a high-level programming language using a compiler was commonly called an '' autocode''. Examples of autocodes are COBOL and Fortran. The first high-level programming language designed for computers was Plankalkül, created by Konrad Zuse. However, it was not implemented in his time, and his original contributions were largely isolated from other developments due to World War II, aside from the language's influence on the "Superplan" langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compiler
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that translate source code from a high-level programming language to a lower level language, low-level programming language (e.g. assembly language, object code, or machine code) to create an executable program.Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, Jeffrey D. Ullman - Second Edition, 2007 There are many different types of compilers which produce output in different useful forms. A ''cross-compiler'' produces code for a different Central processing unit, CPU or operating system than the one on which the cross-compiler itself runs. A ''bootstrap compiler'' is often a temporary compiler, used for compiling a more permanent or better optimised compiler for a language. Related software ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intermediate Representation
An intermediate representation (IR) is the data structure or code used internally by a compiler or virtual machine to represent source code. An IR is designed to be conducive to further processing, such as optimization and translation. A "good" IR must be ''accurate'' – capable of representing the source code without loss of information – and ''independent'' of any particular source or target language. An IR may take one of several forms: an in-memory data structure, or a special tuple- or stack-based code readable by the program. In the latter case it is also called an ''intermediate language''. A canonical example is found in most modern compilers. For example, the CPython interpreter transforms the linear human-readable text representing a program into an intermediate graph structure that allows flow analysis and re-arrangement before execution. Use of an intermediate representation such as this allows compiler systems like the GNU Compiler Collection and LLVM to be u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debugger
A debugger is a computer program used to test and debug other programs (the "target" programs). Common features of debuggers include the ability to run or halt the target program using breakpoints, step through code line by line, and display or modify the contents of memory, CPU registers, and stack frames. The code to be examined might alternatively be running on an '' instruction set simulator'' (ISS), a technique that allows great power in its ability to halt when specific conditions are encountered, but which will typically be somewhat slower than executing the code directly on the appropriate (or the same) processor. Some debuggers offer two modes of operation, full or partial simulation, to limit this impact. An exception occurs when the program cannot normally continue because of a programming bug or invalid data. For example, the program might have tried to use an instruction not available on the current version of the CPU or attempted to access unavailable or pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symbol Table
In computer science, a symbol table is a data structure used by a language translator such as a compiler or interpreter, where each identifier, symbol, constant, procedure and function in a program's source code is associated with information relating to its declaration or appearance in the source. In other words, the entries of a symbol table store the information related to the entry's corresponding symbol. Background A symbol table may only exist in memory during the translation process, or it may be embedded in the output of the translation, such as in an ABI object file for later use. For example, it might be used during an interactive debugging session, or as a resource for formatting a diagnostic report during or after execution of a program. Description The minimum information contained in a symbol table used by a translator and intermediate representation (IR) includes the symbol's name and its location or address. For a compiler targeting a platform with a concept ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executable
In computer science, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), instructions", as opposed to a data (computing), data file that must be interpreted (parser, parsed) by an interpreter (computing), interpreter to be functional. The exact interpretation depends upon the use. "Instructions" is traditionally taken to mean machine code instructions for a physical central processing unit, CPU. In some contexts, a file containing scripting instructions (such as bytecode) may also be considered executable. Generation of executable files Executable files can be hand-coded in machine language, although it is far more convenient to develop software as source code in a high-level language that can be easily understood by humans. In some cases, source code might be specified in assembly language instead, which rema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machine Code
In computer programming, machine code is computer code consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). For conventional binary computers, machine code is the binaryOn nonbinary machines it is, e.g., a decimal representation. representation of a computer program that is actually read and interpreted by the computer. A program in machine code consists of a sequence of machine instructions (possibly interspersed with data). Each machine code instruction causes the CPU to perform a specific task. Examples of such tasks include: # Load a word from memory to a CPU register # Execute an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) operation on one or more registers or memory locations # Jump or skip to an instruction that is not the next one In general, each architecture family (e.g., x86, ARM) has its own instruction set architecture (ISA), and hence its own specific machine code language. There are exceptions, such as the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Static Program Analysis
In computer science, static program analysis (also known as static analysis or static simulation) is the analysis of computer programs performed without executing them, in contrast with dynamic program analysis, which is performed on programs during their execution in the integrated environment. The term is usually applied to analysis performed by an automated tool, with human analysis typically being called "program understanding", program comprehension, or code review. In the last of these, software inspection and software walkthroughs are also used. In most cases the analysis is performed on some version of a program's source code, and, in other cases, on some form of its object code. Rationale The sophistication of the analysis performed by tools varies from those that only consider the behaviour 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
