pointer analysis In computer science, pointer analysis, or points-to analysis, is a static code analysis technique that establishes which pointers, or heap references, can point to which variables, or storage locations. It is often a component of more complex analyses such as escape analysis. A closely related technique is shape analysis. (The above is the most common colloquial use of the term. A secondary use has ''pointer analysis'' be the collective name for both ''points-to analysis'', defined as above, and alias analysis. Points-to and alias analysis are closely related but not always equivalent problems.) ==Example== For the following example program, a points-to analysis would compute that the points-to set of p is .