research-article

Automatic Generation of Code Analysis Tools: The CastQL Approach

Authors:

Christakis Lezos,

Grigoris Dimitroulakos,

Ioannis Latifis,

Konstantinos MasselosAuthors Info & Claims

RWDSL '16: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Real World Domain Specific Languages

Article No.: 3, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/2889420.2889422

Published: 12 March 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Source code analysis and manipulation tools have become an essential part of software development processes. Automating the development of such tools can heavily reduce development time, effort and cost. This paper proposes a framework for the efficient development of code analysis software. A tool for automatically generating the front end of analysis tools for a given language grammar is proposed. The proposed approach can be applied to any language that can be described using the BNF notation. The proposed framework also provides a domain specific language to concisely express queries on the internal representation generated by the front end. This language tackles the problem of writing complex code in a general purpose programming language in order to retrieve information from the internal representation. The approach has been evaluated through two different realistic usage scenarios applied to a number of different benchmark applications. The front end generator has also been tested for twenty input grammars. In all cases the software generated by the proposed framework functions according to the input grammar while the development time has been reduced on average down to 12% compared to equivalent handwritten implementations. The experimental results give evidence that the use of the proposed framework can heavily reduce the relevant design effort and cost.

References

[1]

T. Alves, J. Hage, and P. Rademaker. A Comparative Study of Code Query Technologies. In 2011 11th IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM), pages 145--154, Sept. 2011.

Digital Library

[2]

P. Anderson and T. Teitelbaum. Software inspection using CodeSurfer. In Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Inspection in Software Engineering (WISE), Paris, France, July 2001.

[3]

G. Antoniol, M. Di Penta, and E. Merlo. YAAB (Yet another AST browser): using OCL to navigate ASTs. In 11th IEEE International Workshop on Program Comprehension, 2003, pages 13--22, May 2003.

Digital Library

[4]

A. Arusoaie and D. Vicol. Automating Abstract Syntax Tree Construction for Context Free Grammars. In 2012 14th International Symposium on Symbolic and Numeric Algorithms for Scientific Computing (SYNASC), pages 152--159, Sept. 2012.

Digital Library

[5]

S. Barman. Aster: Automatic abstract syntax. PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin, May 2009.

[6]

D. Beyer. Relational Programming with CrocoPat. In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE '06, pages 807--810, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM.

Digital Library

[7]

M. Bravenboer, K. T. Kalleberg, R. Vermaas, and E. Visser. Stratego/XT 0.17. A language and toolset for program transformation. Science of Computer Programming, 72(1âĂŞ2):52--70, June 2008.

Digital Library

[8]

F. Catthoor, K. Danckaert, S. Wuytack, and N. Dutt. Code transformations for data transfer and storage exploration preprocessing in multimedia processors. IEEE Design Test of Computers, 18(3):70--82, May 2001.

Digital Library

[9]

T. Cohen, J. Y. Gil, and I. Maman. JTL: The Java Tools Language. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-oriented Programming Systems, Languages, and Applications, OOPSLA '06, pages 89--108, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM.

Digital Library

[10]

J. R. Cordy. The TXL source transformation language. Science of Computer Programming, 61(3):190--210, Aug. 2006.

Digital Library

[11]

R. F. Crew. ASTLOG: A Language for Examining Abstract Syntax Trees. In Proceedings of the Conference on Domain-Specific Languages on Conference on Domain-Specific Languages (DSL), 1997, DSL'97, pages 18--18, Berkeley, CA, USA, 1997. USENIX Association.

Digital Library

[12]

O. de Moor, M. Verbaere, and E. Hajiyev. Keynote Address: QL for Source Code Analysis. In Seventh IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation, 2007. SCAM 2007, pages 3--16, Sept. 2007.

Digital Library

[13]

C. De Roover, C. Noguera, A. Kellens, and V. Jonckers. The SOUL Tool Suite for Querying Programs in Symbiosis with Eclipse. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Programming in Java, PPPJ '11, pages 71--80, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM.

Digital Library

[14]

C. De Roover and R. Stevens. Building development tools interactively using the EKEKO meta-programming library. In 2014 Software Evolution Week - IEEE Conference on Software Maintenance, Reengineering and Reverse Engineering (CSMR-WCRE), pages 429--433, Feb. 2014.

[15]

G. Dimitroulakos, C. Lezos, and K. Masselos. MEMSCOPT: A source-to-source compiler for dynamic code analysis and loop transformations. In Proceedings of the 2012 Conference on Design and Architectures for Signal and Image Processing (DASIP), pages 385--386, Karlsruhe, Germany, Oct. 2012.

[16]

A. Floc'h, T. Yuki, A. El-Moussawi, A. Morvan, K. Martin, M. Naullet, M. Alle, L. L'Hours, N. Simon, S. Derrien, F. Charot, C. Wolinski, and O. Sentieys. GeCoS: A framework for prototyping custom hardware design flows. In 2013 IEEE 13th International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM), volume 0, pages 100--105, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, 2013. IEEE Computer Society.

[17]

M. Forsberg. Three Tools for Language Processing: BNF Converter, Functional Morphology, and Extract. Ph.D. Thesis, Chalmers University of Technology and Goteborg University, Goteborg, Sweden, 2007.

[18]

M. Fowler. Domain-Specific Languages. Addison-Wesley Professional, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1 edition edition, Oct. 2010.

Digital Library

[19]

E. Gagnon and L. Hendren. SableCC, an object-oriented compiler framework. In Technology of Object-Oriented Languages, 1998. TOOLS 26. Proceedings, pages 140--154, Aug. 1998.

Digital Library

[20]

S. Gunther. Development of Internal Domain-specific Languages: Design Principles and Design Patterns. In Proceedings of the 18th Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, PLoP '11, pages 1:1--1:25, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM.

Digital Library

[21]

E. Hajiyev, M. Verbaere, and O. d. Moor. codeQuest: Scalable Source Code Queries with Datalog. In ECOOP 2006 âĂŞ Object-Oriented Programming, number 4067, pages 2--27. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2006.

Digital Library

[22]

L. C. Kats and E. Visser. The Spoofax Language Workbench: Rules for Declarative Specification of Languages and IDEs. In Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications, OOPSLA '10, pages 444--463, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM.

Digital Library

[23]

P. Klint, T. van der Storm, and J. Vinju. RASCAL: A Domain Specific Language for Source Code Analysis and Manipulation. In Ninth IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation, 2009. SCAM '09, pages 168--177, Sept. 2009.

Digital Library

[24]

S.-I. Lee, T. A. Johnson, and R. Eigenmann. Cetus âĂŞ An Extensible Compiler Infrastructure for Source-to-Source Transformation. In Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing, number 2958, pages 539--553. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2004.

[25]

C. Lezos, G. Dimitroulakos, A. Freskou, and K. Masselos. Dynamic source code analysis for memory hierarchy optimization in multimedia applications. In Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Design and Architectures for Signal and Image Processing (DASIP), pages 343--344, Cagliari, Italy, Oct. 2013.

[26]

C. Lezos, G. Dimitroulakos, and K. Masselos. Reuse distance analysis for locality optimization in loop-dominated applications. In Proceedings of the 2015 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE), pages 1237--1240, Grenoble, France, Mar. 2015.

Digital Library

[27]

B. C. Lopes and R. Auler. Getting Started with LLVM Core Libraries. Packt Publishing, Aug. 2014.

Digital Library

[28]

P. B. Mann. A Translational BNF Grammar Notation (TBNF). SIGPLAN Not., 41(4):16--23, Apr. 2006.

Digital Library

[29]

M. Martin, B. Livshits, and M. S. Lam. Finding Application Errors and Security Flaws Using PQL: A Program Query Language. In Proceedings of the 20th Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications, OOPSLA '05, pages 365--383, New York, NY, USA, 2005. ACM.

Digital Library

[30]

G. C. Necula, S. McPeak, S. P. Rahul, and W. Weimer. CIL: Intermediate Language and Tools for Analysis and Transformation of C Programs. In Compiler Construction, number 2304, pages 213--228. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2002.

Digital Library

[31]

K. Ng, M. Warren, P. Golde, and A. Hejlsberg. The Roslyn Project: Exposing the C# and VB compiler's code analysis. White Paper, Microsoft Corporation, Sept. 2012.

[32]

T. Parr. The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference. Pragmatic Bookshelf, Dallas, Texas, second edition edition, Jan. 2013.

Digital Library

[33]

S. H.-e. Peng. UTDSP: A VLIW Programmable DSP Processor. Master Thesis, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, 1999.

[34]

J. F. Power and B. A. Malloy. A metrics suite for grammar-based software. Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution: Research and Practice, 16(6):405--426, Nov. 2004.

[35]

D. Quinlan. Rose: compiler support for object-oriented frameworks. Parallel Processing Letters, 10(02n03):215--226, June 2000.

[36]

P. Rademaker. Binary relational querying for structural source code analysis. Master Thesis, Universiteit van Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands, 2008.

[37]

T. Stripf, O. Oey, T. Bruckschloegl, J. Becker, G. Rauwerda, K. Sunesen, G. Goulas, P. Alefragis, N. S. Voros, S. Derrien, O. Sentieys, N. Kavvadias, G. Dimitroulakos, K. Masselos, D. Kritharidis, N. Mitas, and T. Perschke. Compiling Scilab to high performance embedded multicore systems. Microprocessors and Microsystems, 37(8, Part C):1033--1049, Nov. 2013.

Digital Library

[38]

R.-G. Urma and A. Mycroft. Programming Language Evolution via Source Code Query Languages. Tucson, AZ, USA, Oct. 2012.

[39]

M. G. J. van den Brand, A. van Deursen, J. Heering, H. A. d. Jong, M. d. Jonge, T. Kuipers, P. Klint, L. Moonen, P. A. Olivier, J. Scheerder, J. J. Vinju, E. Visser, and J. Visser. The Asf+Sdf Meta-environment: A Component-Based Language Development Environment. In Compiler Construction, number 2027, pages 365--370. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2001.

Digital Library

[40]

K. D. Volder. JQuery: A Generic Code Browser with a Declarative Configuration Language. In Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages, number 3819, pages 88--102. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2005.

Digital Library

[41]

D. S. Wile. Abstract Syntax from Concrete Syntax. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE '97, pages 472--480, New York, NY, USA, 1997. ACM.

Digital Library

[42]

R. P. Wilson, R. S. French, C. S. Wilson, S. P. Amarasinghe, J. M. Anderson, S. W. K. Tjiang, S.-W. Liao, C.-W. Tseng, M. W. Hall, M. S. Lam, and J. L. Hennessy. SUIF: An Infrastructure for Research on Parallelizing and Optimizing Compilers. SIGPLAN Not., 29(12):31--37, Dec. 1994.

Digital Library

Cited By

Lezos CDimitroulakos GLatifis IMasselos K(2020)A Locality Optimizer for Loop-dominated Applications Based on Reuse Distance AnalysisACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems10.1145/339818925:6(1-26)Online publication date: 2-Sep-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3398189

Automatic Generation of Code Analysis Tools: The CastQL Approach
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools

Recommendations

Modular language implementation in Rascal - experience report

All software evolves, and programming languages and programming language tools are no exception. And just like in ordinary software construction, modular implementations can help ease the process of changing a language implementation and its dependent ...
Incorporating Language Processing into Java Applications: A JavaCC Tutorial

Application programs sometimes need to deal with input whose structure and meaning are dictated by complex formal rules. Although compilers, command processors, and database-query-language processors are prime examples of these applications, the need ...
XPL

Languages that are used for Software Language Engineering (SLE) offer a range of features that support the construction and deployment of new languages. SLE languages offer features for constructing and processing syntax and defining the semantics of ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

RWDSL '16: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Real World Domain Specific Languages

March 2016

46 pages

ISBN:9781450340519

DOI:10.1145/2889420

Program Chairs:
Robert Stewart
Heriot-Watt University
,
Greg Michaelson
Heriot-Watt University

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 12 March 2016

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Conference

RWDSL '16

RWDSL '16: 1st International Workshop on Real World Domain Specific Languages

March 12, 2016

Barcelona, Spain

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 7 of 9 submissions, 78%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

1
Total Citations
View Citations
89
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)0
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 06 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Lezos CDimitroulakos GLatifis IMasselos K(2020)A Locality Optimizer for Loop-dominated Applications Based on Reuse Distance AnalysisACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems10.1145/339818925:6(1-26)Online publication date: 2-Sep-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3398189

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents