Abstract
JavaScript poses significant challenges for points-to analysis, particularly due to its flexible object model in which object properties can be created and deleted at run-time and accessed via first-class names. These features cause an increase in the worst-case running time of field-sensitive Andersen-style analysis, which becomes O(N 4), where N is the program size, in contrast to the O(N 3) bound for languages like Java. In practice, we found that a standard implementation of the analysis was unable to analyze popular JavaScript frameworks.
We identify correlated dynamic property accesses as a common code pattern that is analyzed very imprecisely by the standard analysis, and show how a novel correlation tracking technique enables us to handle this pattern more precisely, thereby making the analysis more scalable. In an experimental evaluation, we found that correlation tracking often dramatically improved analysis scalability and precision on popular JavaScript frameworks, though in some cases scalability challenges remain.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Agesen, O.: The Cartesian Product Algorithm: Simple and Precise Type Inference of Parametric Polymorphism. In: Olthoff, W. (ed.) ECOOP 1995. LNCS, vol. 952, pp. 2–26. Springer, Heidelberg (1995)
An, D., Chaudhuri, A., Foster, J.S., Hicks, M.: Dynamic Inference of Static Types for Ruby. In: POPL (2011)
Andersen, L.O.: Program Analysis and Specialization for the C Programming Language. PhD thesis, University of Copenhagen, DIKU (1994)
Balakrishnan, G., Reps, T.: Recency-Abstraction for Heap-Allocated Storage. In: Yi, K. (ed.) SAS 2006. LNCS, vol. 4134, pp. 221–239. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Blackshear, S., Chang, B.-Y.E., Sankaranarayanan, S., Sridharan, M.: The Flow-Insensitive Precision of Andersen’s Analysis in Practice. In: Yahav, E. (ed.) SAS 2011. LNCS, vol. 6887, pp. 60–76. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Chaudhuri, S.: Subcubic Algorithms for Recursive State Machines. In: POPL (2008)
ECMA. ECMAScript Language Specification, 5th edn., ECMA-262 (2009)
Feldthaus, A., Millstein, T., Møller, A., Schäfer, M., Tip, F.: Tool-supported Refactoring for JavaScript. In: OOPSLA (2011)
Grove, D., Chambers, C.: A Framework for Call Graph Construction Algorithms. TOPLAS 23(6) (2001)
Guarnieri, S., Livshits, V.B.: Gatekeeper: Mostly Static Enforcement of Security and Reliability Policies for JavaScript Code. In: USENIX Security Symposium (2009)
Guarnieri, S., Livshits, V.B.: Gulfstream: Incremental Static Analysis for Streaming JavaScript Applications. In: WebApps (2010)
Guarnieri, S., Pistoia, M., Tripp, O., Dolby, J., Teilhet, S., Berg, R.: Saving the World Wide Web from Vulnerable JavaScript. In: ISSTA (2011)
Guha, A., Saftoiu, C., Krishnamurthi, S.: The Essence of JavaScript. In: D’Hondt, T. (ed.) ECOOP 2010. LNCS, vol. 6183, pp. 126–150. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Jensen, S.H., Møller, A., Thiemann, P.: Type Analysis for JavaScript. In: Palsberg, J., Su, Z. (eds.) SAS 2009. LNCS, vol. 5673, pp. 238–255. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Jensen, S.H., Møller, A., Thiemann, P.: Interprocedural Analysis with Lazy Propagation. In: Cousot, R., Martel, M. (eds.) SAS 2010. LNCS, vol. 6337, pp. 320–339. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Lhoták, O., Hendren, L.: Scaling Java Points-to Analysis Using SPARK. In: Hedin, G. (ed.) CC 2003. LNCS, vol. 2622, pp. 153–169. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Maffeis, S., Mitchell, J.C., Taly, A.: An Operational Semantics for JavaScript. In: Ramalingam, G. (ed.) APLAS 2008. LNCS, vol. 5356, pp. 307–325. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Milanova, A., Rountev, A., Ryder, B.G.: Parameterized Object Sensitivity for Points-to Analysis for Java. TOSEM 14(1) (2005)
Schäfer, M., Verbaere, M., Ekman, T., de Moor, O.: Stepping Stones over the Refactoring Rubicon. In: Drossopoulou, S. (ed.) ECOOP 2009. LNCS, vol. 5653, pp. 369–393. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Smaragdakis, Y., Bravenboer, M., Lhoták, O.: Pick Your Contexts Well: Understanding Object-sensitivity. In: POPL (2011)
Sridharan, M., Fink, S.J.: The Complexity of Andersen’s Analysis in Practice. In: Palsberg, J., Su, Z. (eds.) SAS 2009. LNCS, vol. 5673, pp. 205–221. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Sridharan, M., Gopan, D., Shan, L., Bodík, R.: Demand-Driven Points-To Analysis for Java. In: OOPSLA (2005)
Tripp, O., Pistoia, M., Fink, S.J., Sridharan, M., Weisman, O.: TAJ: Effective Taint Analysis of Web Applications. In: PLDI (2009)
Tripp, O., Weisman, O.: Hybrid Analysis for JavaScript Security Assessment. In: ESEC/FSE 2011, Industrial Track (2011)
Vardoulakis, D., Shivers, O.: CFA2: A Context-Free Approach to Control-Flow Analysis. In: Gordon, A.D. (ed.) ESOP 2010. LNCS, vol. 6012, pp. 570–589. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Watson, T.J.: Libraries for Analysis (WALA), http://wala.sf.net
Web Technology Surveys. Usage of JavaScript libraries for websites, http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/javascript_library/all (accessed March 30, 2012)
Zheng, Y., Bao, T., Zhang, X.: Statically Locating Web Application Bugs Caused by Asynchronous Calls. In: WWW (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Sridharan, M., Dolby, J., Chandra, S., Schäfer, M., Tip, F. (2012). Correlation Tracking for Points-To Analysis of JavaScript. In: Noble, J. (eds) ECOOP 2012 – Object-Oriented Programming. ECOOP 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7313. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31057-7_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31057-7_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31056-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31057-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)