A Plugin for Static Analysis of Run-Time Symbol Lookups for the GCC Compiler

The problem of program call graph construction could be complicated by indirect calls. Modern compilers are able to handle indirect calls of declared functions in a single translation unit. Nevertheless, there are functions such as dlsym that make indirect calls possible without function declaration in the same translation unit. An address of indirect call function is found by function name at run-time. Such invocations are hidden for compiler as well as for linker. The paper suggests two step static analysis for revealing symbols loaded at run-time with func tions similar to dlsym. The rst step collects auxiliary information about a program between translation units, the second applies collected information to analyze individual translation units and emits found symbols. The paper contains 34 pages, 6 chapters, 5 illustrations, 5 tables, 29 bibliography items. Keywords: static analysis, call graph, jump functions, dlsym, gcc, compiler, plugin.