Trends in applying abstract interpretation

Abstract interpretation is a principled approach to inferring properties of a program's execution by simulating that execution using an interpreter which computes over some abstraction of the program's usual, concrete domain, and which collects the information of interest during the execution. Abstract interpretation has been used as the basis of research in logic and functional programming, particularly in applications concerned with compiler optimizations. However, abstract interpretation has the potential to be used in other applications, such as debugging or verification of programs. In this paper we review the use of abstract interpretation to both compiler optimizations and to other applications, attempting to give a flavour of the kind of information it is possible to infer and some of the issues involved