Abstract parsing: Static analysis of dynamically generated string output using LR-parsing technology

Abstract

We combine LR(k)-parsing technology and data-flow analysis to analyze, in advance of execution, the documents generated dynamically by a program. Based on the document language's context-free reference grammar and the program's control structure, the analysis predicts how the documents will be generated and parses the predicted documents. Our strategy remembers context-free structure by computing abstract LR-parse stacks. The technique is implemented in Objective Caml and has statically validated a suite of PHP programs that dynamically generate HTML documents. © 2009 Springer.