macaw/refinement/README.md

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Macaw Refinement Libary
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The refinement library provides supplemental functionality for
discovery of elements that macaw-symbolic is not able to discover via
pattern matching. This library will use crucible symbolic analysis to
attempt to determine elements that could not be identified by
macaw-symbolic. The identification provided by macaw-symbolic is
incomplete, and so is the identification by this macaw-refinement, but
macaw-refinement attempts to additionally "refine" the analysis to
achieve even more information which can then be provided back to the
macaw analysis.
* Terminator effects for incomplete blocks. For example, the target
IP address by symbolic evaluation (e.g. of jump tables). If the
current block does not provide sufficient information to
symbolically identify the target, previous blocks can be added to
the analysis (back to the entry block or a loop point).
* Argument liveness (determining which registers and memory
locations are used/live by a block allows determination of ABI
compliance (for transformations) and specific block
requirements (which currently start with a full register state and
blank memory).
* Call graphs. Determination of targets of call instructions that
cannot be identified by pattern matching via symbolic evaluation,
using techniques similar to those for identifying incomplete blocks.