Metadata invariants: Checking and inferring metadata coding conventions

Song, Xianfang; Tilevich,

doi:10.1109/icse.2012.6227148

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Song et al [22] introduce metadata invariants that are not exclusive for annotations but work for XML languages, too. They use Metadata Invariant Language (MIL) to write invariants for annotations or XML documents.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Source Code Annotations as Formal Languages

Nosal

Sulír

Juhár

2015

Annals of Computer Science and Information Systems

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Abstract-Attribute-oriented programming (source code annotations) is a program level marking technique that enables enrichment of program elements with custom metadata. In this paper we hypothesize that there is a correspondence between source code annotations and conventional formal languages in general. We analyze our observations about source code annotations from three aspects of language description: concrete syntax, abstract syntax, and semantics. The discussion provides evidence of the hypothesized correspondence and we use it as a basis for our definition of an annotation-based language (abbreviated: @L). However, the analysis also shows that compared to conventional formal languages, source code annotations have some specificities mainly connected to their binding to host program elements. The presented analysis contributes to the field of attributeoriented programming by discussing the relationship between annotations and conventional formal languages, and by surveying relational idioms in annotations' usage that can be inspirational for annotations' authors.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Source Code Annotations as Formal Languages

Nosal

Sulír

Juhár

2015

Annals of Computer Science and Information Systems

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“…Each annotation expresses information only about the immediate program construct it annotates. Annotations cannot express the relationships between the annotated elements 2 [23,24,25] (e.g., all the fields annotated with the same annotation). Further, annotations cannot even express a naming equivalence between its attributes and the annotated program constructs.…”

Section: Reusabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reusing metadata across components, applications, and languages

Song

Tilevich

2015

Science of Computer Programming

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Among the well-known means to increase programmer productivity and decrease development effort is systematic software reuse. Although large scale reuse remains an elusive goal, programmers have been successfully reusing individual software artifacts, including components, libraries, and specifications. One software artifact that is not amenable to reuse is metadata, which has become an essential part of modern software development. Specifically, mainstream metadata formats, including XML and Java 5 annotations, are not amenable to systematic reuse. As a result, software that uses metadata cannot fully reap the benefits traditionally associated with systematic reuse. To address this lack of metadata reusability, this article presents Pattern-Based Structural Expressions (PBSE), a new metadata format that is not only reusable, but also offers conciseness and maintainability advantages. PBSE can be reused both across individual program components and across entire applications. In addition, PBSE makes it possible to reuse metadata-expressed functionality across languages. In particular, we show how implementations of non-functional concerns (commonly expressed through metadata) in existing languages can be reused in emerging languages via automated metadata translation. Because metadata constitutes an intrinsic part of modern software applications, the ability to systematically reuse metadata is essential for improving programmer productivity and decreasing development effort.

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“…To address this shortcoming, we have created metadata invariants, a new programming abstraction that expresses naming and typing relationships between metadata and the main source code of a program. A paper that appears in the main technical program of ICSE 2012 describes the idea, concept, and prototype of metadata invariants [4]. The goal of this demo is to supplement that paper with a demonstration of our Eclipse plugin, Metadata Bug Finder (MBF).…”

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confidence: 98%

Detecting metadata bugs on the fly

Song

Tilevich

2012

2012 34th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)

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Programmers are spending a large and increasing amount of their time writing and modifying metadata, such as Java annotations and XML deployment descriptors. And yet, automatic bug finding tools cannot find metadata-related bugs introduced during program refactoring and enhancement. To address this shortcoming, we have created metadata invariants, a new programming abstraction that expresses naming and typing relationships between metadata and the main source code of a program. A paper that appears in the main technical program of ICSE 2012 describes the idea, concept, and prototype of metadata invariants [4]. The goal of this demo is to supplement that paper with a demonstration of our Eclipse plugin, Metadata Bug Finder (MBF). MBF takes as input a script written in our domain-specific language that describes a set of metadata coding conventions the programmer wishes to enforce. Then after each file save operation, MBF checks the edited codebase for the presence of any violations of the given metadata programming conventions. These violations are immediately reported to the programmer as potential metadata-related bugs. By making the programmer aware of these potential bugs, MBF prevents them from seeping into production, thereby improving the overall correctness of the edited codebase.

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Metadata invariants: Checking and inferring metadata coding conventions

Cited by 10 publications

References 23 publications

Source Code Annotations as Formal Languages

Source Code Annotations as Formal Languages

Reusing metadata across components, applications, and languages

Detecting metadata bugs on the fly

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