Packages

Definition Classes: root

Definition Classes: root

OPAL is a Scala-based framework for the static analysis, manipulation and creation of Java bytecode.

OPAL is a Scala-based framework for the static analysis, manipulation and creation of Java bytecode. OPAL is designed with performance, scalability and adaptability in mind.

Its main components are:

a library (Common) which provides generally useful data-structures and algorithms for static analyses.
a framework for implementing lattice based static analyses (Static Analysis Infrastructure)
a framework for parsing Java bytecode (Bytecode Infrastructure) that can be used to create arbitrary representations.
a library to create a one-to-one in-memory representation of Java bytecode (Bytecode Disassembler).
a library to create a representation of Java bytecode that facilitates writing simple static analyses (Bytecode Representation - org.opalj.br).
a scalable, easily customizable framework for the abstract interpretation of Java bytecode (Abstract Interpretation Framework - org.opalj.ai).
a library to extract dependencies between code elements and to facilitate checking architecture definitions.
a library for the lightweight manipulation and creation of Java bytecode (Bytecode Assembler).

General Design Decisions

Thread Safety

Unless explicitly noted, OPAL is thread safe. I.e., the classes defined by OPAL can be considered to be thread safe unless otherwise stated. (For example, it is possible to read and process class files concurrently without explicit synchronization on the client side.)

No `null` Values

Unless explicitly noted, OPAL does not null values I.e., fields that are accessible will never contain null values and methods will never return null. If a method accepts null as a value for a parameter or returns a null value it is always explicitly documented. In general, the behavior of methods that are passed null values is undefined unless explicitly documented.

No Typecasts for Collections

For efficiency reasons, OPAL sometimes uses mutable data-structures internally. After construction time, these data-structures are generally represented using their generic interfaces (e.g., scala.collection.{Set,Map}). However, a downcast (e.g., to add/remove elements) is always forbidden as it would effectively prevent thread-safety.

Assertions

OPAL makes heavy use of Scala's Assertion Facility to facilitate writing correct code. Hence, for production builds (after thorough testing(!)) it is highly recommend to build OPAL again using -Xdisable-assertions.

Definition Classes: org

package ai

Implementation of an abstract interpretation (ai) framework – also referred to as OPAL.

Please note that OPAL/the abstract interpreter just refers to the classes and traits defined in this package (ai). The classes and traits defined in the sub-packages (in particular in domain) are not considered to be part of the core of OPAL/the abstract interpreter.

Definition Classes: opalj
Note: This framework assumes that the analyzed bytecode is valid; i.e., the JVM's bytecode verifier would be able to verify the code. Furthermore, load-time errors (e.g., LinkageErrors) are – by default – completely ignored to facilitate the analysis of parts of a project. In general, if the presented bytecode is not valid, the result is undefined (i.e., OPAL may report meaningless results, crash or run indefinitely).
See also: org.opalj.ai.AI - Implements the abstract interpreter that processes a methods code and uses an analysis-specific domain to perform the abstract computations.
org.opalj.ai.Domain - The core interface between the abstract interpretation framework and the abstract domain that is responsible for performing the abstract computations.

package domain

This package contains definitions of common domains that can be used for the implementation of analyses.

Types of Domains

In general, we distinguish two types of domains. First, domains that define a general interface (on top of the one defined by Domain), but do not directly provide an implementation. Hence, whenever you develop a new Domain you should consider implementing/using these domains to maximize reusability. Second, Domains that implement a specific interface (trait). In this case, we further distinguish between domains that provide a default implementation (per interface only one of these Domains can be used to create a final Domain) and those that can be stacked and basically refine the overall functionality.

Examples

Domains That Define a General Interface
- Origin defines two types which domains that provide information abou the origin of a value should consider to implement.
- TheProject defines a standard mechanism how a domain can access the current project.
- ...
Domains That Provide a Default Implementation
- Origin defines the functionality to return a value's origin if the value supports that.
- org.opalj.ai.domain.TheProject default implementation of the class hierarchy related methods using the project's class hierarchy.
- org.opalj.ai.domain.DefaultHandlingOfMethodResults basically implements a Domain's methods related to return instructions an uncaught exceptions.
- ...
Domains That Implement Stackable Functionality
- org.opalj.ai.domain.RecordThrownExceptions records information about all uncaught exceptions by intercepting a Domain's respective methods. However, it does provide a default implementation. Hence, a typical pattern is:

class MyDomain extends Domain with ...
    with DefaultHandlingOfMethodResults with RecordThrownExceptions

Thread Safety

Unless explicitly documented, a domain is never thread-safe. The general programming model is to use one Domain object per code block/method and therefore, thread-safety is not required for Domains that are used for the evaluation of methods. However domains that are used to adapt/transfer values should be thread safe (see org.opalj.ai.domain.ValuesCoordinatingDomain for further details).