A type graph model for java programs

Abstract

In this work we present a type graph that models all executable constructs of the Java programming language. Such a model is useful for any graph-based technique that relies on a representation of Java programs as graphs. The model can be regarded as a common representation to which all Java syntax graphs must adhere. We also present the systematic approach that is being taken to generate syntax graphs from Java code. Since the type graph model is comprehensive, i.e., covers the whole language specification, the technique is guaranteed to generate a corresponding graph for any valid Java program. In particular, we want to extract such syntax graphs in order to perform static analysis and model checking of programs written in Java. Although we focus on Java, this same approach could be adapted for other programming languages. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.