Universal Regular Path Queries

Journal of Systems and Software

Noguera

et al. 2016

• We argue for a general-purpose source code analysis tool that is aware of aspects.• We present the logic program querying tool GASR, the first such tool..• We discuss its implementation along with its library of logical predicates.• We show how it can automatically verify previously published aspectual assumptions. AbstractAspect-oriented programming languages extend existing languages with new features for supporting modularization of crosscutting concerns. These features however make existing source code analysis tools unable to reason over this code. Consequently, all code analysis efforts of aspect-oriented code that we are aware of have either built limited analysis tools or were performed manually. Given the significant complexity of building them or manual analysis, a lot of duplication of effort could have been avoided by using a general-purpose tool.To address this, in this paper we present Gasr: a source code analysis tool that reasons over AspectJ source code, which may contain metadata in the form of annotations. Gasr provides multiple kinds of analyses that are general enough such that they are reusable, tailorable and can reason over annotations. We demonstrate the use of Gasr in two ways: we first automate the recognition of previously identified aspectual source code assumptions. Second, we turn implicit assumptions into explicit assumptions through annotations and automate their verification. In both uses Gasr performs detection and verification of aspect assumptions on two well-known case studies that were manually investigated in earlier work. Gasr finds already known aspect assumptions and adds instances that had been previously overlooked.

Section: Predicates Reifying Behavioral Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

AspectJ code analysis and verification with GASR

Fabry

Journal of Systems and Software

Noguera

et al. 2016

“…QWAL enables querying graphs using regular path expressions [11]. Regular path expressions are an intuitive formalism for quantifying over the paths through a graph.…”

Section: B Qwal a Graph Query Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

A History Querying Tool and Its Application to Detect Multi-version Refactorings

Stevens

2013 17th European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering

Noguera

et al. 2013

Abstract-Version Control Systems (VCS) have become indispensable in developing software. In order to provide support for change management, they track the history of software projects. Tool builders can exploit this latent historical information to provide insights in the evolution of the project. For example, the information needed to identify when and where a particular refactoring was applied is implicitly present in the VCS. However, tool support for eliciting this information is lacking. So far, no general-purpose history querying tool capable of answering a wide variety of questions about the evolution of software exists. Therefore, we generalize the idea of a program querying tool to a history querying tool. A program querying tool reifies the program's code into a knowledge base, from which it retrieves elements that exhibit characteristics specified through a user-provided program query. Our history querying tool, QWALKEKO, enables specifying the evolution of source code characteristics across multiple versions of Java projects versioned in Git. We apply QWALKEKO to the problem of detecting refactorings, specified as the code changes induced by each refactoring. These specifications stem from the literature, but are limited to changes between two successive versions. We demonstrate the expressiveness of our tool by generalizing the specifications such that refactorings can span multiple versions.

“…Of the graph traversal predicates at the bottom of Table II, path/n is of special interest as it embodies the implementation of parametric regular path expressions [25], [26] in EKEKO (which we have applied in earlier work to query the history of versioned software [23]). Regular path expressions are an intuitive formalism for quantifying over the paths through a graph.…”

Section: ) Predicates Reifying Behavioral Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aspectual source code analysis with GASR

Fabry

2013 IEEE 13th International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM)

Jonckers

2013

Abstract-To be able to modularize crosscutting concerns, aspects introduce new programming language features, often in a new language, with a specific syntax. These new features lead to new needs for source code analysis tools, resulting in the requirement for a general-purpose aspectual source code analysis tool. Ignoring this requirement has led to a nontrivial duplication of effort in the aspect-oriented software development community. This is because all code analysis efforts that we are aware of have either built ad-hoc analysis tools or were performed manually. In this paper we present GASR: a source code analysis tool in the tradition of logic program querying that reasons over ASPECTJ source code. By hooking into the IDE plugins for ASPECTJ, GASR provides a library of predicates that can be used to query aspectual source code. We demonstrate the use of GASR by automating the recognition of a number of previously identified aspectual source code assumptions. We then detect assumption instances on two well-known case studies that were manually investigated in the earlier work. In addition to finding the already known aspect assumptions, GASR encounters assumption instances that were overlooked before.