METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING CLASS HIERARCHY INFORMATION FOR FUNCTION DEVIRTUALIZATION

A class hierarchy graph defining the baseclass-subclass relationship between classes in an object-oriented program is built by analysis of the intermediate representation of the program produced by a compiler front end. This representation includes virtual tables for classes that include virtual functions and type structure information for the classes provided to aid run time type identification (RTTI). The class hierarchy information cannot be identified from the virtual tables alone but can be identified from the type structure information.