Execution Trace-Based Dynamic Slicing On Binary Programs

In order to attract users from the Windows operating system, the UnifiedKernel system is aimed at supporting Windows applications on the Linux Operating System. When the UnifiedKernel developers were using software for Windows to test the system's compatibility with the Windows OS, they found themselves in trouble due to the lack of source code. Analyzing the millions of lines of machine instructions is a lengthy job, let alone the fact that most of the instructions are irrelevant.Therefore, this paper describes a way to dynamically slice binary programs without the use of source code, to reduce the workload of the developers.This paper has worked in the following two ways:(1) Describing the theoretical and technical base of the execution trace-based dynamic slicing. The paper describes the dynamic disassembling method, and proves that the execution trace and the control dependence graph is enough;(2) Describing the execution trace-based method of dynamically slicing binary programs. The paper also describes the experiments designed to prove the correctness and effectiveness of the method.The experiments show that the method suggested by the paper is effective as the slices it gives are 70% to 90% smaller in size comparing to the program itself. The developers' workload is reduced to 1/3 to 1/10 of the original, which effectively improves their efficiency.The paper's work points out that dynamically slicing the binary programs are possible, and the execution traced-based method is more practical. The slicing effectively reduced the developers' workload of instruction analysis, improving their efficiency.