data flow graph semantics (translation) of pointers

I would be grateful, if anybody could answer the following question.


Background:
-----------


We are a group at the Technical University of Denmark, who is
making a hardware/software co-syntese toolset.
As the intermediate language in the high-level synthesis, we are
using static data flow graphs.


We are considering making a translator from C to data flow graphs.
Large parts of C are translatable to static data flow graphs,
however, in general it is not possible to translate dynamic
maintened objects like pointers to static data flow graphs.
      A way to solve this problem may be to extend the static dataflow
graphs with an abstract storage type with update and lookup
operations. The translation of a program containing pointers would
then give rise to a storage chain cointaining nodes which update
and lookup the storage.
An assignment of the form, *p := ..., (where p is a pointer)
would give rise to an update node in the graph,
and an expression of the form, *p, would give rise to a lookup node
in the graph.


Question:
---------


Do you know if anybody have made something similar?


Have anybody given a language with pointers
a dataflow graph (or colored Petri net) semantics?




Thanking you, in advance


      Anne Haxthausen


      Department of Computer Science
      The Technical University of Denmark, bld. 344
      DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark
      e-mail: ah@id.dtu.dk
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