Automated construction of testing and analysis tools

Many software testing and analyse´s tools manipulate graph representations of programs, such as abstract syntax trees or abstract semantics graphs. Hand-crafting such tools in conventional programming languages can be difficult, error prone, and time consuming. Our approach is to use application generators targeted for the domain of graph-representation-based testing and analysis tools. Moreover, we generate the generators themselves, so that the development of tools based on different languages and/or representations can also be supported better. In this paper we report on our experiences in developing a system called Aria that generates testing and analysis tools based on an abstract semantics graph representation for C and C++ cabled Reprise. Aria itself was generated by the Genoa system. We demonstrate the utility of Aria and, thereby, the pourer of our approach, by showing Aria´s use in the development of a tool that derives control dependence graphs directly from Reprise abstract semantics graphs