Abstract interpretation is a general framework for efficiently computing properties that must be true for all possible executions of a program. It's a widely used approach both in compiler optimizations as well as offline static analysis for finding bugs.
The Toy IR is in SSA form, which means that every variable is defined exactly once. This means that abstract properties of each variable are easy to track.
Abstract interpretation means a couple different things to different people. There's rigorous mathematical formalism thanks to Patrick and Radhia Cousot, our favorite power couple, and there's also sketchy hand-wavy stuff like what will follow in this post.
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