Flow analysis of code customizations

Abstract

Inconsistency between metadata and code customizations is a major concern in modern, configurable enterprise systems. The increasing reliance on metadata, in the form of XML files, and code customizations, in the form of Java files, has led to a hybrid development platform. The expected consistency requirements between metadata and code should be checked but often are not, so current tools offer surprisingly poor development support. In this paper, we adapt classical data flow analyses to detect inconsistencies and provide better static guarantees. We provide a formalization of the consistency requirements and a set of adapted analyses for a concrete case study. Our work is implemented in a fast and efficient prototype in the form of an Eclipse plugin. We validate our work by testing this prototype on actual production code; preliminary results show that this approach is worthwhile. We found a significant number of previously undetected consistency errors and have received very positive feedback from the developer community in the case study. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.