COMPLEMENTATION IN ABSTRACT INTERPRETATION

Reduced product of abstract domains is a rather well-known operation f or domain composition in abstract interpretation. In this article, we study its inverse operation, introducing a notion of domain complement ation in abstract interpretation. Complementation provides a systemati c way to design new abstract domains, and it allows to systematically decompose domains. Also, such an operation allows to simplify domain v erification problems, and it yields space-saving representations for c omplex domains. We show that the complement exists in most cases, and we apply complementation to three well-known abstract domains, notably to Cousot and Cousot's interval domain for integer variable analysis, to Cousot and Cousot's domain for comportment analysis of functional languages, and to the domain Sharing for aliasing analysis of logic la nguages.