Effects of Context on Program Slicing

Whether context-sensitive program analysis is more effective than context-insensitive analysis is an ongoing discussion. There is evidence that context-sensitivity matters in complex analyses like pointer analysis or program slicing. Empirical data shows that contextsensitive program slicing is more precise and under some circumstances even faster than context-insensitive program slicing. This article will add to the discussion by examining if the context itself matters, i.e. if a given context leads to more precise slices for that context. Based on some experiments, we will show that this is strongly dependent on the structure of the programs