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Re: A hypothetical compiler extension

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On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 20:09:09 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:

> On 10/28/2015 7:50 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Oct 2015 22:21:20 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 10/27/2015 5:24 PM, Stefan Ram wrote:
>>>>     The following is hypothetical AFAIK, but wouldn't it be nice?
>>>>
>>>>     One calls
>>>>
>>>> javac -Xlint:null
>>>>
>>>>     and then
> 
>>>>     Javac alread has path-value-analysis as it already can detect
>>>>     when a path of execution of a method (think of nested ifs)
>>>>     accesses a variable that has not been defined yet in this path.
>>>
>>> I don't think it would be appropriate for the compiler to complain
>>> about something that very well may not be a problem due to something
>>> being done in the calling code.
> 
>> There is a similar tool, 'lint' for C and has been for a very long
>> time, though  Its name is 'lint'. There is an enhanced version,
>> 'splint', which has replaced lint on some Linux distros. It is separate
>> from the compiler. The preferred approach is to run lint after the
>> source has been clean compiled. ake a look at their manpages or visit
>> http://splint.org/ to see what it can do.
>>
>> I don't see why you shouldn't write a similar program for Java if
>> you're feeling keen, though much simpler programs are also useful and
>> can be whipped up in no time by using awk or Perl. For instance, I have
>> one, written in awk, that searches C source for insecure string
>> functions, i.e. using the strcpy() function instead of strncpy(). Its
>> useful for hardening older code.
> 
> There are a ton of tools available for Java that check for potential
> unsafe constructs and violations of coding convention.
> 
> Not sure if any of them checks for what Stefan want though.
> 
If Stefan feels like checking out Coco/R, writing such a  tool could be 
the perfect project.

CoCo/R is a 'compiler generator'. You describe the language you need to 
parse and it generates source for a parser. You just add back-end code to 
the parser to do what you need (generate byte code, check for unsafe 
constructs, etc). There is a Java version available which I used to parse 
C source in order to document preprocessor macros and function 
declarations (both K&R and ANSI). I found that to be fairly straight 
forward. 

  http://www.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/Research/Projects/Coco/


-- 
martin@   | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org       |

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Re: A hypothetical compiler extension Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-10-27 22:21 -0400
  Re: A hypothetical compiler extension Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-10-28 11:50 +0000
    Re: A hypothetical compiler extension Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2015-10-28 20:09 -0400
      Re: A hypothetical compiler extension Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2015-10-29 12:24 +0000
        Re: A hypothetical compiler extension Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2015-10-29 18:36 -0400

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