VEIL: Reading Control Flow Graphs Like Code

TL;DR

VEIL is a novel CFG visualization algorithm that enhances readability by preserving execution order and utilizing dominator analysis, outperforming existing graph drawing methods on real-world program graphs.

Contribution

The paper introduces VEIL, a new layout algorithm for control flow graphs that improves interpretability by maintaining execution flow and leveraging dominator analysis.

Findings

VEIL produces clearer CFG layouts than existing methods.

VEIL improves readability of real-world CFGs.

VEIL offers better layout performance in empirical evaluations.

Abstract

Control flow graphs (CFGs) are essential tools for understanding program behavior, yet the size of real-world CFGs makes them difficult to interpret. With thousands of nodes and edges, sophisticated graph drawing algorithms are required to present them on screens in ways that make them readable and understandable. However, being designed for general graphs, these algorithms frequently break the natural flow of execution, placing later instructions before earlier ones and obscuring critical program structures. In this paper, we introduce a set of criteria specifically tailored for CFG visualization, focusing on preserving execution order and making complex structures easier to follow. Building on these criteria, we present VEIL, a new layout algorithm that uses dominator analysis to produce clearer, more intuitive CFG layouts. Through a study of CFGs from real-world applications, we show how our method improves readability and provides improved layout performance compared to state of the art graph drawing techniques.