[Pl-seminar] Semantics Seminar Schedule

[Mitchell Wand]

NU Programming Languages Seminar
Wednesday, May 1, 2002
306 Egan  Hall, Northeastern University
    (building 44 on http://www.campusmap.neu.edu/)
**9:30-11:30**  **NOTE NEW MEETING TIME**

The Safe C Runtime Analyzer
Alan Feuer

Nearly every day we are reminded that the spread
of Internet access has opened the door for subtle
program errors to become major security holes.
Memory errors in C/C++ programs are a popular target
of hackers. This talk will describe a runtime system
for C programs that detects most memory errors. The
program, sold commercially until 1993 as the Safe C
Runtime Analyzer, works as a precompiler, transforming
ordinary C programs into instrumented programs that
are then compiled using a standard compiler. When an
instrumented program is run, error messages are logged
as they are detected. An important attribute of Safe C
is that instrumented code can be mixed freely with
non-instrumented code.

The talk will compare the strength of checking in Safe
C to other runtime systems such as Purify and BCC. It
will also include a brief demonstration of the software
and present details of pointer checking. My primary
purpose in presenting this rather dated work is to
ascertain if there is interest in bringing the software
into the college for further development. Feedback on
the future potential of this work is solicited.

Upcoming presentations:

5/8 Richard Rasala and/or Viera Proulx: Program Patterns in the Java
Power Tools toolkit (tentative).

Most meetings will be 930-1130 in 306 EG.