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Improving Automatic C-to-Rust Translation with Static Analysis.

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Title: Improving Automatic C-to-Rust Translation with Static Analysis.
Authors: Hong, Jaemin1 jaemin.hong@kaist.ac.kr
Source: ICSE: International Conference on Software Engineering. 2023, p273-277. 5p.
Subjects: Systems programming (Computer science), Computer security vulnerabilities, Computer software developers, Application program interfaces, Software engineering
Abstract: While popular in system programming, C has been infamous for its poor language-level safety mechanisms, leading to critical bugs and vulnerabilities. C programs can still have memory and thread bugs despite passing type checking. To resolve this long-standing problem, Rust has been recently developed with rich safety mechanisms, including its notable ownership type system. It prevents memory and thread bugs via type checking. By rewriting legacy C programs in Rust, their developers can discover unknown bugs and avoid adding new bugs. However, the adaptation of Rust in legacy programs is still limited due to the high cost of manual C-to-Rust translation. Rust's safe features are semantically different from C's unsafe features and require programmers to precisely understand the behavior of their programs for correct rewriting. Existing C-to-Rust translators do not relieve this burden because they syntactically translate C features into unsafe Rust features, leaving further refactoring for programmers. In this paper, we propose the problem of improving the state-of-the-art C-to-Rust translation by automatically replacing unsafe features with safe features. Specifically, we identify two important unsafe features to be replaced: lock API and output parameters. We show our results on lock API and discuss plans for output parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of ICSE: International Conference on Software Engineering is the property of Association for Computing Machinery and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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  Data: While popular in system programming, C has been infamous for its poor language-level safety mechanisms, leading to critical bugs and vulnerabilities. C programs can still have memory and thread bugs despite passing type checking. To resolve this long-standing problem, Rust has been recently developed with rich safety mechanisms, including its notable ownership type system. It prevents memory and thread bugs via type checking. By rewriting legacy C programs in Rust, their developers can discover unknown bugs and avoid adding new bugs. However, the adaptation of Rust in legacy programs is still limited due to the high cost of manual C-to-Rust translation. Rust's safe features are semantically different from C's unsafe features and require programmers to precisely understand the behavior of their programs for correct rewriting. Existing C-to-Rust translators do not relieve this burden because they syntactically translate C features into unsafe Rust features, leaving further refactoring for programmers. In this paper, we propose the problem of improving the state-of-the-art C-to-Rust translation by automatically replacing unsafe features with safe features. Specifically, we identify two important unsafe features to be replaced: lock API and output parameters. We show our results on lock API and discuss plans for output parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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  Data: <i>Copyright of ICSE: International Conference on Software Engineering is the property of Association for Computing Machinery and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1109/ICSE-Companion58688.2023.00074
    Languages:
      – Code: eng
        Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 5
        StartPage: 273
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Systems programming (Computer science)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Computer security vulnerabilities
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Computer software developers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Application program interfaces
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Software engineering
        Type: general
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      – TitleFull: Improving Automatic C-to-Rust Translation with Static Analysis.
        Type: main
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            NameFull: Hong, Jaemin
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          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 05
              Text: 2023
              Type: published
              Y: 2023
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            – TitleFull: ICSE: International Conference on Software Engineering
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