Multilanguage Detection of Design Pattern Instances

• Tipo: Artigo em Revista Científica Internacional
• Data: 2025

Autores

Andrade, H (Autor) Outra; João Bispo (Autor) FEUP; Filipe Figueiredo Correia (Autor) FEUP

Revista

Título: Journal of Software: Evolution and Process

Vol. 37

ISSN: 2047-7481

Editora: Wiley-Blackwell

Indexação

ISI Web of Knowledge - 0 Citações

Scopus - 0 Citações

Outras Informações

ID Authenticus: P-018-11Q

DOI: 10.1002/smr.2738

Abstract (EN): Code comprehension is often supported by source code analysis tools that provide more abstract views over software systems, such as those detecting design patterns. These tools encompass analysis of source code and ensuing extraction of relevant information. However, the analysis of the source code is often specific to the target programming language. We propose DP-LARA, a multilanguage pattern detection tool that uses the multilanguage capability of the LARA framework to support finding pattern instances in a code base. LARA provides a virtual AST, which is common to multiple OOP programming languages, and DP-LARA then performs code analysis of detecting pattern instances on this abstract representation. We evaluate the detection performance and consistency of DP-LARA with a few software projects. Results show that a multilanguage approach does not compromise detection performance, and DP-LARA is consistent across the languages we tested it for (i.e., Java and C/C++). Moreover, by providing a virtual AST as the abstract representation, we believe to have decreased the effort of extending the tool to new programming languages and maintaining existing ones.

Idioma: Inglês

Tipo (Avaliação Docente): Científica

Nº de páginas: 18