Tools to make C programs safe: a deeper study  

作　　者：王继民 平玲娣 潘雪增 沈海斌 严晓浪 

机构地区：[1]School of Computer Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China [2]Interdisciplinary Research Center on System on the Chip, Zhengjiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

出　　处：《Journal of Zhejiang University-Science A(Applied Physics & Engineering)》2005年第1期63-70,共8页浙江大学学报（英文版）A辑（应用物理与工程）

基　　金：Project (No. 2003AA1Z1060) supported by the National Hi-Tech Research and Development Program (863) of China

摘　　要：The C programming language is expressive and flexible, but not safe; as its expressive power and flexibility are obtained through unsafe language features, and improper use of these features can lead to program bugs whose causes are hard to identify. Since C is widely used, and it is impractical to rewrite all existing C programs in safe languages, so ways must be found to make C programs safe. This paper deals with the unsafe features of C and presents a survey on existing solutions to make C pro- grams safe. We have studied binary-level instrumentation tools, source checkers, source-level instrumentation tools and safe dialects of C, and present a comparison of different solutions, summarized the strengths and weaknesses of different classes of solutions, and show measures that could possibly improve the accuracy or alleviate the overhead of existing solutions.The C programming language is expressive and flexible, but not safe; as its expressive power and flexibility are obtained through unsafe language features, and improper use of these features can lead to program bugs whose causes are hard to identify. Since C is widely used, and it is impractical to rewrite all existing C programs in safe languages, so ways must be found to make C programs safe. This paper deals with the unsafe features of C and presents a survey on existing solutions to make C pro- grams safe. We have studied binary-level instrumentation tools, source checkers, source-level instrumentation tools and safe dialects of C, and present a comparison of different solutions, summarized the strengths and weaknesses of different classes of solutions, and show measures that could possibly improve the accuracy or alleviate the overhead of existing solutions.

关 键 词：Unsafe feature C language Instrumentation tools Safe dialect 

分 类 号：TP312[自动化与计算机技术—计算机软件与理论]