Multi-language static code analysis on the LARA framework

Abstract

We propose a mechanism to raise the abstraction level of source-code analysis and robustly support multiple languages. Built on top of the LARA framework, it allows sharing language specifications between LARA source-to-source compilers, and enables the mapping of a virtual AST over the nodes of ASTs provided by different, unrelated parsers. We use this approach to create a language specification for Object-Oriented (OO) languages and add support for three different LARA compilers. We evaluate it by implementing a library of 18 software metrics using this language specification and apply the metrics to source code in four programming languages (C, C++, Java, and JavaScript). We compare the results with other tools to evaluate the approach.