Converting java programs to use generic libraries

Abstract

Java 1.5 will include a type system (called JSR-14) that supports parametric polymorphism, or generic classes. This will bring many benefits to Java programmers, not least because current Java practise makes heavy use of logically-generic classes, including container classes.Translation of Java source code into semantically equivalent JSR-14 source code requires two steps: parameterisation (adding type parameters to class definitions) and instantiation (adding the type arguments at each use of a parameterised class). Parameterisation need be done only once for a class, whereas instantiation must be performed for each client, of which there are potentially many more. Therefore, this work focuses on the instantiation problem. We present a technique to determine sound and precise JSR-14 types at each use of a class for which a generic type specification is available. Our approach uses a precise and context-sensitive pointer analysis to determine possible types at allocation sites, and a set-constraint-based analysis (that incorporates guarded, or conditional, constraints) to choose consistent types for both allocation and declaration sites. The technique safely handles all features of the JSR-14 type system, notably the raw types (which provide backward compatibility) and 'unchecked' operations on them. We have implemented our analysis in a tool that automatically inserts type arguments into Java code, and we report its performance when applied to a number of real-world Java programs.

Automated Detection of Refactorings in Evolving Components

“…Tip et al [TKB03] use type constraints to support an analysis for refactorings that introduce type generalization. Donovan et al [DKTE04] use a pointer analysis and a set-constraint-based analysis to support refactorings that replace the instantiation of raw classes with generic classes. Dincklage and Diwan [vDD04] use various heuristics to convert from non-generic classes to generic classes.…”

A flow-based approach for variant parametric types

“…To test the utility of our flow-based variant type system, we evaluated our prototype on a set of Java applications 1 as used in [10,14]. These applications make use of library classes from package java.util, which we annotated with our variant parametric types.…”

Inference and Checking of Object Ownership

“…In contrast to our work, Donovan et al [10] use heuristics to find desirable solutions and their inference requires a pointer analysis. Kieżun et al [15] make use of type constraints to ensure behavior preservation.…”

“…Work on introducing generics to Java [10,15] solves similar challenges, because leaving every type as raw is a legal typing, but a useless one that expresses no design intent and detects no coding errors. In contrast to our work, Donovan et al [10] use heuristics to find desirable solutions and their inference requires a pointer analysis.…”