Devirtualization-Based Python Static Analysis
Artemiy Lvovich GALUSTOV,
Konstantin Igorevich VIHLYANTSEV,
Alexey Evgenevich BORODIN,
Andrey Andreevich BELEVANTSEV https://doi.org/10.15514/ISPRAS-2025-37(6)-39
Abstract
In this paper we present an approach to static analysis of Python programs based on a low-level intermediate representation and devirtualization to provide interprocedural and intermodule analysis. This approach can be used to analyze Python programs without type annotations and find complex defects inaccessible to traditional AST-based analysis tools. Using CPython bytecode as a base, the representation suitable to static analysis is constructed and call resolution is performed via an interprocedural devirtualization algorithm. We implemented the proposed approach in a static analyzer for finding errors in C, C++, Java, and Go programs and achieved good results on open-source projects with minimal modifications to existing detectors. The detectors that are relevant to Python had a true positive rate from 60% up to 96%. This demonstrates that our approach allows to apply techniques used for analysis of statically typed languages to Python.
About the Authors
Artemiy Lvovich GALUSTOV
Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Masters graduate, researcher at ISP RAS. Research interests: static analysis for finding errors in source code.
Konstantin Igorevich VIHLYANTSEV
Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Master’s student at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Faculty of Radio Engineering and Cybernetics). His research interests include static analysis and profiling of dynamic programming languages.
Alexey Evgenevich BORODIN
Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Cand. Sci. (Phys.-Math.), researcher. Research interests: static analysis for finding errors in source code.
Andrey Andreevich BELEVANTSEV
1 Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Dr. Sci. (Phys.-Math.), Prof., corresponding Member RAS, leading researcher at ISP RAS, Professor at Moscow State University. Research interests: static analysis, program optimization, parallel programming.
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Review
For citations:
GALUSTOV A.L., VIHLYANTSEV K.I., BORODIN A.E., BELEVANTSEV A.A. Devirtualization-Based Python Static Analysis. Proceedings of the Institute for System Programming of the RAS (Proceedings of ISP RAS). 2025;37(6):109-120. https://doi.org/10.15514/ISPRAS-2025-37(6)-39
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