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Polyvariance

In program analysis, a polyvariant or context-sensitive analysis (as opposed to a monovariant or context-insensitive analysis) analyzes each function multiple times, typically once at each call site, to improve the precision of the analysis. Polyvariance is common in data-flow and pointer analyses.

Forms of polyvariance include:

  • Call-site sensitivity
  • The Cartesian product algorithm
  • Object sensitivity
  • Type sensitivity

The first two are more often used for dataflow analyses, the latter two are more frequently used for pointer analyses.

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This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Polyvariance, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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