Points-to analysis for JavaScript

Abstract

JavaScript is widely used by web developers and the complexity of JavaScript programs has increased over the last year. Therefore, the need for program analysis for JavaScript is evident. Points-to analysis for JavaScript is to determine the set of objects to which a reference variable or an object property may point. Points-to analysis for JavaScript is a basis for further program analyses for JavaScript. It has a wide range of applications in code optimization and software engineering tools. However, points-to analysis for JavaScript has not yet been developed. JavaScript has dynamic features such as the runtime modification of objects through addition of properties or updating of methods. We propose a points-to analysis for JavaScript which precisely handles the dynamic features of JavaScript. Our work is the first attempt to analyze the points-to behavior of JavaScript. We evaluate the analysis on a set of JavaScript programs. We also apply the analysis to a code optimization technique to show that the analysis can be practically useful.