CFGExplorer: Designing a Visual Control Flow Analytics System around Basic Program Analysis Operations

Abstract

Figure 1: CFGExplorer helps researchers analyze programs and correlate control flow (a) and trace data (b). We designed a domain-specific layout approach to elucidate loop structure (orange). Users can animate execution using the linked blue gradient (c). AbstractTo develop new compilation and optimization techniques, computer scientists frequently consult program analysis artifacts such as control flow graphs (CFGs) and traces of executed instructions. A CFG is a directed graph representing possible execution paths in a program. CFGs are commonly visualized as node-link diagrams while traces are commonly viewed in raw text format. Visualizing and exploring CFGs and traces is challenging because of the complexity and specificity of the operations researchers perform. We present a design study where we collaborate with computer scientists researching dynamic binary analysis and compilation techniques. The research group primarily employs CFGs and traces to reason about and develop new algorithms for program optimization and parallelization. Through questionnaires, interviews, and a year-long observation, we analyzed their use of visualization, noting that the tasks they perform match common subroutines they employ in their techniques. Based on this task analysis, we designed CFGExplorer, a visual analytics system that supports computer scientists with interactions that are integrated with the program structure. We developed a domain-specific graph modification to generate graph layouts that reflect program structure. CFGExplorer incorporates structures such as functions and loops, and uses the correspondence between CFGs and traces to support navigation. We further augment the system to highlight the output of program analysis techniques, facilitating exploration at a higher level. We evaluate the tool through guided sessions and semi-structured interviews as well as deployment. Our collaborators have integrated CFGExplorer into their workflow and use it to reason about programs, develop and debug new algorithms, and share their findings.

Visualizing The Intermediate Representation of Just-in-Time Compilers

“…It uses the CVS version control system to get the information about how a program has been changed or evolved over time and visualizes it as a dynamic graph. CFGExplorer [29] visualizes the control flow graph of a program to represent the program structure for dynamic binary analysis. It provides interactive features where users can find specific memory addresses, loops, and functions that they are interested to analyze the system.…”

Problem characterization for visual analytics in MOOC learner's support monitoring: A case of Malaysian MOOC

“…They designed and evaluated RetainVis via iterative design process and participation with medical experts and artificial intelligence scientists. Devkota and Isaacs (2018) collaborated with computer scientists in abstracting design requirements for visualizing control flow graphs that represent the program's execution path. They examine the scientist's analysis tasks and use of visualization via questionnaires, interviews, and a year-long observation.…”

SymNav: Visually Assisting Symbolic Execution

“…Visualization techniques have helped in several research problems from the software visualization and code execution analysis domains, e.g., static and dynamic code analysis [6,18,21], trace analysis and results explanation [7], and performance analysis [2], being some of them tailored to the cyber-security domain (e.g. analysis of malware [33], static analysis of vulnerabilities [4], writing ROP exploits [3]).…”

“…Regarding the CFG, we have evaluated nodes-links and matrixbased representations, choosing the former in light of a) the need to display complex information at node level, b) the need to support tasks like following path(s) (see, e.g., [19]), c) evidences collected from related proposals (see, e.g., [18]) and d) the clear preferences of our users, collected during project meetings comparing proposed matrix-based and nodes-links based representations of the same CFG. Figure 4: Control Flow Graph Environment.…”