How are Contracts Used in Android Mobile Applications?

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2024

Authors

Ferreira, DR (Author) Other; Mendes, A (Author) FEUP; Ferreira, JF (Author) Other

Conference proceedings International

Title: Proceedings of the 2024 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings, ICSE Companion 2024, Lisbon, Portugal, April 14-20, 2024

Pages: 400-401

46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion, ICSE-Companion 2024

Lisbon, 14 April 2024 through 20 April 2024

Indexing

Scopus - 0 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-010-G18

DOI: 10.1145/3639478.3643536

Abstract (EN): Formal contracts and assertions are effective methods to enhance software quality by enforcing preconditions, postconditions, and invariants. However, the adoption and impact of contracts in the context of mobile application development, particularly of Android applications, remain unexplored. We present the first large-scale empirical study on the presence and use of contracts in Android applications, written in Java or Kotlin. We consider 2,390 applications and five categories of contract elements: conditional runtime exceptions, APIs, annotations, assertions, and other. We show that most contracts are annotation-based and are concentrated in a small number of applications. © 2024 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 1