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Abstract: "This paper describes an empirical comparison of the effectiveness of six context-insensitive pointer analysis algorithms that use varying degrees of flow-sensitivity. Four of the algorithms are flow-insensitive, one is flow-sensitive, and another is flow-insensitive, but uses precomputed flow-sensitive information. The effectiveness of each analysis is quantified in terms of compile-time efficiency and precision. Efficiency is reported by measuring CPU time and memory consumption of each analysis. Precision is reported by measuring the computed solutions at the program points where a pointer is dereferenced. The results of this paper will help implementors determine which pointer analysis is appropriate for their application."

Abstract: "The information computed by a pointer alias analysis can be used to improve the precision of subsequent analyses, such as conditional constant propagation. Conditional constant propagation can, in turn, discover unexecutable code, which can improve the precision of pointer analysis. This improved alias precision, in turn, may increase the effectiveness of the conditional constant propagation, and so on. One way to resolved [sic] this mutual dependence between conditional constant propagation and pointer alias analysis is to iterate over the two analyses until a fixed point is reached. In addition to raising efficiency concerns, the resulting precision may also not be optimal, i.e., a more tightly coupled analysis can have better precision for both alias analysis and conditional constant propagation than iterating over the two analyses. In this work we explore three combinations of pointer alias analysis and conditional constant propagation: a one-pass-over-analyses approach, an iterate-over-analyses approach, and a new algorithm that synthesizes pointer alias analysis and conditional constant propagation. We empirically demonstrate the efficiency and precision of these three approaches on a benchmark suite of 21 C programs ranging in size from 200 - 4,600 LOC."

Abstract: "In this paper we describe three pointer-based join algorithms that are simple variants of the nested-loops, sort-merge, and hybrid-hash join algorithms used in relational database systems. Each join algorithm is described as an analysis is carried out to compare the performance of the pointer-based algorithms to their standard, non-pointer-based counterparts. The results of the analysis show that the pointer-based algorithms can provide significant performance gains in many situations. The results also show that the pointer-based join algorithm to consider using in an object-oriented databse system, performs quite poorly on most medium to large joins."