RECODER is a Java framework aimed at source code analysis and metaprogramming. It works on several layers to offer a set of semi-automatic transformations and tools, ranging from a source code parser and unparser, offering a highly detailed syntactical model, analysis tools which are able to infer types of expressions, evaluate compile-time constants and keep cross-reference information, to transformations of the very Java sources, containing a library of common transformations and incremental analysis capabilities. These make up an useful set of tools which can be extended to provide the basis for more advanced refactoring and metacompiler applications, in very different fields, from code beautification and simple preprocessors, stepping to software visualization and design problem detection tools to adaptive programming environments and invasive software composition. The core system development of RECODER started in the academic field and as such, it was confined into a small platform of users. Although a powerful tool, RECODER framework lacks usability and requires extensive and careful configuration to work properly. In order to overcome such limitations, we have taken advantage of the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (Eclipse IDE) developed by IBM, specifically its Plugin Framework Architecture to build a tool and a vehicle where to integrate RECODER functionalities into a wide-used, well-known platform to provide a semi-automated and user-friendly interface. In this bachelor thesis we will document how we have integrated RECODER into an Eclipse plug-in to perform a “proof of concept” transformation of an Eclipse Java Project, directly mapping the Eclipse-generated configuration of the project into RECODER's to automate the tedious task of manually configuring RECODER.

<p> </p><p>RECODER is a Java framework aimed at source code analysis and metaprogramming. It works on several layers to offer a set of semi-automatic transformations and tools, ranging from a source code parser and unparser, offering a highly detailed syntactical model, analysis tools which are able to infer types of expressions, evaluate compile-time constants and keep cross-reference information, to transformations of the very Java sources, containing a library of common transformations and incremental analysis capabilities.</p><p>These make up an useful set of tools which can be extended to provide the basis for more advanced refactoring and metacompiler applications, in very different fields, from code beautification and simple preprocessors, stepping to software visualization and design problem detection tools to adaptive programming environments and invasive software composition.</p><p>The core system development of RECODER started in the academic field and as such, it was confined into a small platform of users. Although a powerful tool, RECODER framework lacks usability and requires extensive and careful configuration to work properly.</p><p>In order to overcome such limitations, we have taken advantage of the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (Eclipse IDE) developed by IBM, specifically its Plugin Framework Architecture to build a tool and a vehicle where to integrate RECODER functionalities into a wide-used, well-known platform to provide a semi-automated and user-friendly interface.</p><p>In this bachelor thesis we will document how we have integrated RECODER into an Eclipse plug-in to perform a “proof of concept” transformation of an Eclipse Java Project, directly mapping the Eclipse-generated configuration of the project into RECODER's to automate the tedious task of manually configuring RECODER.</p><p> </p>

<p> </p><p>Renovate a program is always a hard work and full of problems. It requires a good knowledge of the old program and research and investigation. RECODER is a tool for supporting static metaprogramming of Java program sources. This tool has been patches over and over again since the new versions of Java were coming out. Because of that the code starts to be dirty and with a lot of patches. In order to clean up the implementation the code should be renovated.</p><p>In this thesis, we present the changes that were introduced to the grammar and the implementation of the new parser for RECODER using a different technology.</p><p> </p> / RECODER

<p>The introduction of Java 5.0 came along with an extension of the language syntax. Several new language features as generic types and enumeration types were added to the language specification. These features cause downward-incompatibilities, code written in Java 5.0 will not work on older versions of the Java runtime environment. For some active projects, however, it is not possible to upgrade to higher Java versions, since some code might not be supported on Java 5.0. If one still wants to use components written in Java 5.0, these must be downgraded. Up to now this has been accomplished mostly by transforming the byte code of these programs.</p><p>In this thesis, we present a set of transformations which transform Java 5.0 source code to Java 1.4 compatible code. We successfully apply these transformations to two larger projects and compare our approach to the up to now common byte-code based tools.</p>

Renovate a program is always a hard work and full of problems. It requires a good knowledge of the old program and research and investigation. RECODER is a tool for supporting static metaprogramming of Java program sources. This tool has been patches over and over again since the new versions of Java were coming out. Because of that the code starts to be dirty and with a lot of patches. In order to clean up the implementation the code should be renovated. In this thesis, we present the changes that were introduced to the grammar and the implementation of the new parser for RECODER using a different technology. / RECODER

The introduction of Java 5.0 came along with an extension of the language syntax. Several new language features as generic types and enumeration types were added to the language specification. These features cause downward-incompatibilities, code written in Java 5.0 will not work on older versions of the Java runtime environment. For some active projects, however, it is not possible to upgrade to higher Java versions, since some code might not be supported on Java 5.0. If one still wants to use components written in Java 5.0, these must be downgraded. Up to now this has been accomplished mostly by transforming the byte code of these programs. In this thesis, we present a set of transformations which transform Java 5.0 source code to Java 1.4 compatible code. We successfully apply these transformations to two larger projects and compare our approach to the up to now common byte-code based tools.

<p>VizzAnalyzer is a program analysis tool that can be used for analyzing software programs. It relies on so called Front-Ends for information extraction from various sources like C or Java source code. It allows analyzing different source code by mapping the language specific front-end meta-model onto a common meta-model, on which analysis are defined. Right now we use the Eclipse Parser for parsing Java source code. This requires an Eclipse installation involving a large number of dependencies in order to work with Java source code. Yet, this is not always feasible; we want to be independent from Eclipse using an alternative parser.</p><p>Recoder is a Java meta-programming application program interface (API) that can be used to write Java programs that manipulate and analyze other Java programs. The Recoder framework provides over an application programming interface detailed access to the source code in form of an abstract syntax tree (AST). It has a small footprint and no external dependencies.</p><p>We create the Recoder Front-End as alternative to the existing Eclipse front-end. This includes the definition of a mapping between Recoder Front-End Meta-Model to Common Meta-Model. The mapping result will be used by VizzAnalyzer to do further analysis work. This Bachelor thesis documents relevant theory regarding Recoder Front-End and discusses its development and implementation.</p>

VizzAnalyzer is a program analysis tool that can be used for analyzing software programs. It relies on so called Front-Ends for information extraction from various sources like C or Java source code. It allows analyzing different source code by mapping the language specific front-end meta-model onto a common meta-model, on which analysis are defined. Right now we use the Eclipse Parser for parsing Java source code. This requires an Eclipse installation involving a large number of dependencies in order to work with Java source code. Yet, this is not always feasible; we want to be independent from Eclipse using an alternative parser. Recoder is a Java meta-programming application program interface (API) that can be used to write Java programs that manipulate and analyze other Java programs. The Recoder framework provides over an application programming interface detailed access to the source code in form of an abstract syntax tree (AST). It has a small footprint and no external dependencies. We create the Recoder Front-End as alternative to the existing Eclipse front-end. This includes the definition of a mapping between Recoder Front-End Meta-Model to Common Meta-Model. The mapping result will be used by VizzAnalyzer to do further analysis work. This Bachelor thesis documents relevant theory regarding Recoder Front-End and discusses its development and implementation.