UD-chains for record fields

  I wonder if there has been any research done on the behavior of
records in dataflow analysis. What I mean is that the algorithms
for the building of ud-chains or alias analysis that I have read
about consider only simple variables and arrays. But field
selection also introduces aliasing. For example, after an
assignment such as
      x.a = v;
v.b becomes an alias for x.a.b.


  And when pointer-induced aliasing is compounded with field
selection, it seems to lead to rather formidable complexity:
      s1: y = x;
              ...
      s2: y->a = v;
              ...
      s3: return (x->a.b);


  There seems to be no definition of x->a.b reaching s3, though s2
is such a definition, due to aliasing of x to y in s1, even if
the field b does not appear explicitly in s2.


  I'd be grateful if somebody could direct me to literature
on this problem.
---
Jean-Marie (John) Larcheveque
<jml@bdblues.altair.fr> or <jml@nuri.inria.fr>
--

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