Re: Transformations of pointer parameters in C

Derek M Jones <derek@knosof.co.uk>
26 May 1996 00:00:35 -0400

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Transformations of pointer parameters in C krinke@infbssts.cs.tu-bs.de (1996-05-24)
Re: Transformations of pointer parameters in C derek@knosof.co.uk (Derek M Jones) (1996-05-26)
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From: Derek M Jones <derek@knosof.co.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers,comp.lang.c
Date: 26 May 1996 00:00:35 -0400
Organization: Knowledge Software Ltd
References: 96-05-155
Keywords: C, optimize

All,


> I want to do a transformation of C-programs to eliminate some
> pointers. As C has no reference parameters, they are often emulated
> like this:
>
> Has anybody done something like that before? (Of course, you can think
> of more complicated examples, where the actual argument is a
> pointer...)


About 6 years ago we translated C to a language that had no pointers (it
was a language used in the Malpas formal analysis toolkit).


It was done by replacing pointer references by a list of symbolic names
used to represent things that the pointer might point at. The
analysis was only done on a single file at a time, but suprisingly
good results were acheived.


Check out www.knosof.co.uk/ctoa.html for a bit more info (this paper
discusses translating C to Ada).


derek


--
Derek M Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667
Knowledge Software Ltd email: derek@knosof.co.uk
                                                                                                  http://www.knosof.co.uk
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