Implementing Java modeling language contracts with AspectJ

The Java Modeling Language (JML) is a behavioral interface specification language (BISL) designed for Java. It was developed to improve functional software correctness of Java applications. However, the JML compiler explores the reflection technique and data structures not supported by Java ME applications. In order to eliminate such a problem, this paper proposes the use of AspectJ to implement a new JML compiler, which generates an instrumented bytecode compliant with both Java SE and Java ME applications. The paper includes a comparative study to demonstrate the quality of the final code generated by our compiler. The size of the code is compared against the code generated by an existent JML compiler. Moreover, we evaluate the amount of additional code required to implement the JML assertions in Java applications. Results indicate that the overhead in the code size produced by our approach is very small, which is essential for Java ME applications. Categories and Subject Descriptor...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: SAC
• Authors: Henrique Rebêlo, Sérgio Soares, Ricardo Massa Ferreira Lima, Leopoldo Ferreira, Márcio Cornélio
• Keywords: Applied Computing, Java, Java ME Applications, JML Compiler, SAC 2008