Analysing The Program Analyser

The reliability of program analysis tools is clearly important if such tools are to play a serious role in improving the quality and integrity of software systems, and the confidence which users place in such systems. Yet our experience is that, currently, little attention is paid to analysing the correctness of program analysers themselves, beyond regression testing. In this position paper we present our vision that, by 2025, the use of more rigorous analyses to check the reliability of program analysers will be commonplace. Inspired by recent advances in compiler testing, we set out initial steps towards this vision, building upon techniques such as cross-checking, program transformation and program generation.