37th International Conference on Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems (TOOLS-37'00)
Generic Invariant-Based Static Analysis Tool for Detection of Runtime Errors in Java Programs
Sydney, Australia
November 20-November 23
ISBN: 0-7695-0918-5
The paper presents an invariant-based generic tool to statically analyze Java programs in order to detect potential errors (bugs). We briefly discuss the supporting theoretical framework and highlight the results of the tool. It can automatically detect potential bugs such as illegal dereference and array bounds and report them before the program is executed. For a Java class, invariants related to the category of error under examination are automatically generated and used to assess the validity of variable usage in the implementation of this class. The tool provides a practical and extensible generic mechanism for error detection to help industry practitioners who work with an object oriented language such as Java. The presented mechanism is capable of addressing error detection for a variety of error categories that cannot be caught by flow-based static analysis tools.
Index Terms:
Java; program diagnostics; program debugging; object-oriented programming; generic invariant-based static analysis tool; runtime error detection; Java programs; automatic bug detection; illegal dereference; array bounds; Java class; object oriented language
Citation:
S. Skevoulis, Xiaoping Jia, "Generic Invariant-Based Static Analysis Tool for Detection of Runtime Errors in Java Programs," tools, pp.36, 37th International Conference on Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems (TOOLS-37'00), 2000