variablesreferred

Variablesreferred is a term used in programming language theory and software tooling to denote the set of variables that are referenced by a given program element. A variable is referred to when its identifier appears in an expression, statement, or block and may influence the computation at runtime or during interpretation.

Definition: For a program point p, VariablesReferred(p) denotes the set of variables that occur in the syntactic or semantic context of p.

Scope and usage: The concept is used in static analysis and compiler design to reason about dependencies, binding, and lifetimes. It helps determine which variables affect a computation, which is essential for optimizations such as dead code elimination, constant propagation, and register allocation, as well as for garbage collection and alias analysis.

Examples: In a code snippet, x = a + b; VariablesReferred at this statement are {a, b}. In a function f(x) { return y + z; } where y is a global and z is a parameter, the VariablesReferred for the expression within f include {y, z}.

Relationship: VariablesReferred is related to, but distinct from, declared variables, defined variables, and live variables. It focuses on references, not definitions, and can vary with scope, closures, and dynamic evaluation.

See also: variable reference, symbol table, binding, free variable, live variable analysis, alias analysis.