Practical Model-Based Static Analysis for Definite Logic Programs

Model theory is the basis of an elegant and practical framework for static analysis. An abstract semantics is specified by giving a pre-interpretation for the language of the program, and then constructing a model based on that pre-interpretation. This contrasts with the more complex ingredients of analyses based on abstract interpretation [9]. The directness and simplicity of this approach is illustrated by specifying and implementing a number analyses. These include various mode analyses, analyses on the structure of lists and the length of lists, and simple and polymorphic types. The implementations used for in the experiments are based on existing bottom-up analysis tools. The experiments indicate that the approach is practical for many useful domains