Code Normalization

When you hear about normalization, it is typically in reference to data models. However, code normalization is a way to take the concept and benefits of normalization from the database domain and to apply it to code. Code normalization is used to describe a wide variety of techniques, with the simplest being the use of a pre-processor to strip out comments and white spaces, and a more complex application of code normalization being used to reduce executable code to canonical forms that can be analyzed to detect obfuscated or mutating malware.