Execution trace exploration and analysis using ontologies

Abstract

Dynamic analysis is the analysis of the properties of a running program. In order to perform dynamic analysis, information about the running program is often collected through execution traces. Exploring and analyzing these traces can be an issue due to their size and that knowledge of a human expert is often needed to derive the required conclusions. In this paper we provide a framework in which the semantics of execution traces, as well as that of dynamic analyses, are formally represented through ontologies. In this framework the exploration and analysis of the traces is enabled through semantic queries, and enhanced further through automated reasoning on the ontologies. We will also provide ontologies to represent traces and some basic dynamic analysis techniques, along with semantic queries that enable these techniques. Finally we will illustrate our approach through an example. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.