C to O-O Translation: Beyond the Easy Stuff

Can we reuse some of the huge code-base developed in C to take advantage of modern programming language features such as type safety, object-orientation, and contracts? This paper presents a source-to-source translation of C code into Eiffel, a modern object-oriented programming language, and the supporting tool C2Eif. The translation is completely automatic and supports the entire C language (ANSI, as well as many GNU C Compiler extensions, through CIL) as used in practice, including its usage of native system libraries and inlined assembly code. Our experiments show that C2Eif can handle C applications and libraries of significant size (such as vim and libgsl), as well as challenging benchmarks such as the GCC torture tests. The produced Eiffel code is functionally equivalent to the original C code, and takes advantage of some of Eiffel's object-oriented features to produce safe and easy-to-debug translations

Scaling Up Automated Verification: A Case Study and a Formalization IDE for Building High Integrity Software

Component-based software verification is a difficult challenge because developers must specify components formally and annotate implementations with suitable assertions that are amenable to automation. This research investigates the intrinsic complexity in this challenge using a component-based case study. Simultaneously, this work also seeks to minimize the extrinsic complexities of this challenge through the development and usage of a formalization integrated development environment (F-IDE) built for specifying, developing, and using verified reusable software components. The first contribution is an F-IDE built to support formal specification and automated verification of object-based software for the integrated specification and programming language RESOLVE. The F-IDE is novel, as it integrates a verifying compiler with a user-friendly interface that provides a number of amenities including responsive editing for model-based mathematical contracts and code, assistance for design by contract, verification, responsive error handling, and generation of property-preserving Java code that can be run within the F-IDE. The second contribution is a case study built using the F-IDE that involves an interplay of multiple artifacts encompassing mathematical units, component interfaces, and realizations. The object-based interfaces involved are specified in terms of new mathematical models and non-trivial theories designed to encapsulate data structures and algorithms. The components are designed to be amenable to modular verification and analysis

Visualization of the Static aspects of Software: a survey

International audienceSoftware is usually complex and always intangible. In practice, the development and maintenance processes are time-consuming activities mainly because software complexity is difficult to manage. Graphical visualization of software has the potential to result in a better and faster understanding of its design and functionality, saving time and providing valuable information to improve its quality. However, visualizing software is not an easy task because of the huge amount of information comprised in the software. Furthermore, the information content increases significantly once the time dimension to visualize the evolution of the software is taken into account. Human perception of information and cognitive factors must thus be taken into account to improve the understandability of the visualization. In this paper, we survey visualization techniques, both 2D- and 3D-based, representing the static aspects of the software and its evolution. We categorize these techniques according to the issues they focus on, in order to help compare them and identify the most relevant techniques and tools for a given problem

A heuristic-based approach to code-smell detection

Encapsulation and data hiding are central tenets of the object oriented paradigm. Deciding what data and behaviour to form into a class and where to draw the line between its public and private details can make the difference between a class that is an understandable, flexible and reusable abstraction and one which is not. This decision is a difficult one and may easily result in poor encapsulation which can then have serious implications for a number of system qualities. It is often hard to identify such encapsulation problems within large software systems until they cause a maintenance problem (which is usually too late) and attempting to perform such analysis manually can also be tedious and error prone. Two of the common encapsulation problems that can arise as a consequence of this decomposition process are data classes and god classes. Typically, these two problems occur together – data classes are lacking in functionality that has typically been sucked into an over-complicated and domineering god class. This paper describes the architecture of a tool which automatically detects data and god classes that has been developed as a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. The technique has been evaluated in a controlled study on two large open source systems which compare the tool results to similar work by Marinescu, who employs a metrics-based approach to detecting such features. The study provides some valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the two approache

Proceedings of the Third Symposium on Programming Languages and Software Tools : Kääriku, Estonia, August 23-24 1993

http://www.ester.ee/record=b1064507*es

Combining Monitoring with Run-Time Assertion Checking

According to a study in 2002 commissioned by a US Department, software bugs annually costs the US economy an estimated $59 billion. A more recent study in 2013 by Cambridge University estimated that the global cost has risen to$312 billion globally. There exists various ways to prevent, isolate and fix software bugs, ranging from lightweight methods that are (semi)-automatic, to heavyweight methods that require significant user interaction. Our own method described in this tutorial is based on automated run-time checking of a combination of protocol- and data-oriented properties of object-oriented programs

Proceedings of the RESOLVE Workshop 2002

Proceedings of the RESOLVE Workshop 200

Views and concerns and interrelationships : Lessons learned from developing the multi-View software engineering environment PIROL

Software-Entwicklungsumgebungen sind komplexe Systeme mit besonderen Anforderungen an Modularität und Anpaßbarkeit. Diese Arbeit beschreibt die Entwicklung der Umgebung PIROL. Die Beschreibung ist dabei in eine Abfolge der folgenden 12 Themen gegliedert. (1) Metamodellierung ist das Grundkonzept, nach dem PIROL seine Daten gemäß einem objektorientierten Datenmodell zerlegt, so daß beliebige Werkzeuge auch auf die Daten anderer Werkzeuge auf sinnvolle Art und Weise zuzugreifen können. (2) Das Metamodell wird zur persistenten Speicherung der Daten auf Konzepte des Repositories H-PCTE abgebildet. (3) Die Granularität eines Metamodells ist für die Effektivität und Effizienz des Gesamtsystems entscheidend. PIROL unterstützt hybride Modellierung als Kompromiß beider Extreme. (4) Durch Methoden des Metamodells wird Verhaltensmodellierung für verschiedenste Aufgaben unterstützt. (5) Ausnahmebehandlung wird systematisch unterstützt. (6) Verschiedene Mechanismen zur Wahrung der Datenintegrität sind enthalten. (7) Das System wurde nach einer Client-Server Architektur entwickelt, deren zentrale Komponente eine "Workbench" ist, die die Repository-Sprache Lua/P ausführt. (8) Steuerungsintegration erlaubt durch verteilte Steuerflüsse das enge Zusammenspiel lose gekoppelter Komponenten. (9) Die koordinierte Zusammenarbeit mehrerer Benutzer wird unterstützt. (10) Die logische Unabhängigkeit von Werkzeugen wird durch das neue Konzept der Dynamic View Connectors erreicht. (11) Allgemeine Dienste sind in der Umgebung einheitlich verfügbar. (12) Das System unterstützt die Weiterentwicklung. All diese Themengebiete sind sehr eng miteinander verzahnt und die Darstellung ist zu großem Teil der gegenseitigen Beeinflussung gewidmet. Es wird gezeigt, wie eine Großzahl der Entwurfsentscheidungen genau aus diesen Beeinflussungen motiviert sind. Die Beschreibung folgt damit dem Konzept der "Concern Interaction Matrix", das hier zur Bewältigung von Komplexität vorgeschlagen wird. Dabei werden Charakteristika einzelner Anliegen und einzelner Zusammenhänge herausgearbeitet. Die Beschreibung PIROLs wird durch die Liste der integrierten Werkzeuge, Ansätze von Laufzeit-Messungen und einige Betrachtungen zur Beurteilung abgerundet. Abschließend werden verschiedene Konzepte rund um den Begriff "Sichten" erörtert. Sichten sind ein zentrale Anliegen von PIROL. Außerdem generalisiert die Diskussion über die mehrdimensionale Darstellung des Hauptteiles. Es werden Begrifflichkeit, Konzepte und Techniken für Sichten in der Softwaretechnik vorgestellt und diskutiert. Dabei wird die Brücke geschlagen von Sichten in objektorientierten Datenbanken, über aspekt-orientierte Softwareentwicklung bis hin zum allgemeinen "Concern Modeling", zu dem die o.g. Methode einen Beitrag leisten soll. Sichten werden dabei als ein zentrales Konzept der Softwaretechnik neben Abstraktion und Zerlegung beurteilt. Dynamic View Connectors sind ein wesentlicher Beitrag von PIROL, durch den Datenbanksichten und aspektorientierte Programmierung zusammengeführt werden. Zwar ist der Sichten-Begriff längst nicht so scharf definiert, wie die Begriffe Abstraktion und Zerlegung, aber gerade die Überlappungen und Diskrepanzen, die durch Sichten abgebildet werden können, machen dies Konzept zu einem starken Strukturierungsprinzip, das zwar einigen Aufwand zur Behandlung von Inkonsistenzen erfordert, aber andererseits hilft, komplexe Systeme handhabbar und wartbar zu gestalten.Software engineering environments are complex systems with special requirements regarding modularity and adaptability. This thesis describes the development of the environment PIROL. The description is structured as a sequence of the following 12 concerns: (1) Meta modeling is the basic concept by which PIROL decomposes its data in accordance to an object-oriented data model. This allows arbitrary tools to access data of other tools in a meaningful way. (2) For persistent storage the model is mapped to the concepts of the repository H-PCTE. (3) The granularity of a meta model determines effectiveness and efficiency of the system. PIROL supports hybrid modeling as a compromise between extremes. (4) By methods of the meta model behavior modeling is supported for a wide range of tasks. (5) Exception handling is supported systematically. (6) Several mechanisms for preserving data integrity are integrated. (7) The system follows a client-server architecture. As its, central component the "workbench" executes the repository language LuaP. (8) Control integration allows for close cooperation of loosely coupled components by means of distributed control flows. (9) The coordinated cooperation of multiple users is supported. (10) Logical independence of tools is achieved by the novel concept of Dynamic View Connectors. (11) Common services are available throughout the environment in a uniform way. (12) The system is prepared for evolution. All these concerns are tightly interlocked. A considerable share of the presentation is dedicated to such mutual interactions. Is is shown, how a large number of design decisions is motivated exactly by these interactions. The description follows the concept of a "Concern Interaction Matrix" which is proposed for managing complexity. Characteristics of concerns and their interactions are elaborated. The description of PIROL is completed by a list of integrated tools, initial performance measurements and evaluation. Finally, several concepts relating to the notion of "views" are discussed. Views are a central concern of PIROL. Furthermore, the discussion generalizes over the multi-dimensional presentation in the body of this thesis. Notions, concepts and techniques for views in software engineering are presented and discussed. This discussion connects views in object-oriented databases, aspect-oriented software development and general "concern modeling", to which the method of "Concern Interaction Matrices" contributes. Views are regarded as a central concept of software engineering at the same level as abstraction and decomposition. Dynamic View Connectors are a significant contribution of PIROL that combines database views and aspect-oriented programming. The notion of "views" is defined with far less precision than abstraction and decomposition, but indeed by the overlap and mismatches, which can be captured by views, this concept is a strong principle for structuring software and information. Effort is needed for handling inconsistencies as they may arise, but after all, views are a suitable means for managing the complexity of systems and for designing these systems for evolution

Proceedings of Monterey Workshop 2001 Engineering Automation for Sofware Intensive System Integration

The 2001 Monterey Workshop on Engineering Automation for Software Intensive System Integration was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office and the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency. It is our pleasure to thank the workshop advisory and sponsors for their vision of a principled engineering solution for software and for their many-year tireless effort in supporting a series of workshops to bring everyone together.This workshop is the 8 in a series of International workshops. The workshop was held in Monterey Beach Hotel, Monterey, California during June 18-22, 2001. The general theme of the workshop has been to present and discuss research works that aims at increasing the practical impact of formal methods for software and systems engineering. The particular focus of this workshop was "Engineering Automation for Software Intensive System Integration". Previous workshops have been focused on issues including, "Real-time & Concurrent Systems", "Software Merging and Slicing", "Software Evolution", "Software Architecture", "Requirements Targeting Software" and "Modeling Software System Structures in a fastly moving scenario".Office of Naval ResearchAir Force Office of Scientific Research Army Research OfficeDefense Advanced Research Projects AgencyApproved for public release, distribution unlimite