| Computer & Information Science |
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| Tools to make C programs safe: a deeper study |
| WANG Ji-min, PING Ling-di, PAN Xue-zeng, SHEN Hai-bin, YAN Xiao-lang |
| School of Computer Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China; Interdisciplinary Research Center on Soc, Zhengjiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China |
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Abstract 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 programs 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.
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Received: 19 October 2003
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