On undecidability results of real programming languages

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Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

TY - GEN

T1 - On undecidability results of real programming languages

AU - Kirner, Raimund

AU - Zimmermann, W.

AU - Richter, D.

N1 - Original article can be found at : http://www.vmars.tuwien.ac.at/ Copyright Institut fur Technische Informatik

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - Often, it is argued that some problems in data-flow analysis such as e.g. worst case execution time analysis are undecidable (because the halting problem is) and therefore only a conservative approximation of the desired information is possible. In this paper, we show that the semantics for some important real programming languages – in particular those used for programming embedded devices – can be modeled as finite state systems or pushdown machines. This implies that the halting problem becomes decidable and therefore invalidates popular arguments for using conservative analysis.

AB - Often, it is argued that some problems in data-flow analysis such as e.g. worst case execution time analysis are undecidable (because the halting problem is) and therefore only a conservative approximation of the desired information is possible. In this paper, we show that the semantics for some important real programming languages – in particular those used for programming embedded devices – can be modeled as finite state systems or pushdown machines. This implies that the halting problem becomes decidable and therefore invalidates popular arguments for using conservative analysis.

M3 - Conference contribution

BT - In: Procs of Kolloquium Programmiersprachen und Grundlagen der Programmierung

T2 - Kolloquium Programmiersprachen und Grundlagen der Programmierung

Y2 - 1 August 2009

ER -