Abstract

An empirical study investigating the pervasiveness and distribution of indirect function calls via function pointers and virtual methods in middleware software systems is presented. The study encompasses a broad gamut of software systems that range from high-performance, distributed real-time embedded systems, to fully-featured professional 3D game engines; comprising in aggregate nearly five million lines of code and nine software systems. The systems were inter-procedurally statically examined to determine the distribution of function pointers and virtual method calls; function pointers were further segregated by type and complexity. Results indicate that function pointers are typically utilized in situations that make static analysis costly and impractical to conduct. A five-year analysis of archived data shows an increase in the usage of both calls using function pointers and virtual methods over the lifetime of open-source middleware systems, thus posing additional obstacles for inter-procedural analysis.

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