Multi-Language Detection of Design Pattern Instances

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Andrade, Hugo, Bispo, João, Correia, Filipe F.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Andrade, Hugo
Bispo, João
Correia, Filipe F.
author_facet Andrade, Hugo
Bispo, João
Correia, Filipe F.
contents Code comprehension is often supported by source code analysis tools which provide more abstract views over software systems, such as those detecting design patterns. These tools encompass analysis of source code and ensuing extraction of relevant information. However, the analysis of the source code is often specific to the target programming language. We propose DP-LARA, a multi-language pattern detection tool that uses the multi-language capability of the LARA framework to support finding pattern instances in a code base. LARA provides a virtual AST, which is common to multiple OOP programming languages, and DP-LARA then performs code analysis of detecting pattern instances on this abstract representation. We evaluate the detection performance and consistency of DP-LARA with a few software projects. Results show that a multi-language approach does not compromise detection performance, and DP-LARA is consistent across the languages we tested it for (i.e., Java and C/C++). Moreover, by providing a virtual AST as the abstract representation, we believe to have decreased the effort of extending the tool to new programming languages and maintaining existing ones.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_03903
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multi-Language Detection of Design Pattern Instances
Andrade, Hugo
Bispo, João
Correia, Filipe F.
Software Engineering
Code comprehension is often supported by source code analysis tools which provide more abstract views over software systems, such as those detecting design patterns. These tools encompass analysis of source code and ensuing extraction of relevant information. However, the analysis of the source code is often specific to the target programming language. We propose DP-LARA, a multi-language pattern detection tool that uses the multi-language capability of the LARA framework to support finding pattern instances in a code base. LARA provides a virtual AST, which is common to multiple OOP programming languages, and DP-LARA then performs code analysis of detecting pattern instances on this abstract representation. We evaluate the detection performance and consistency of DP-LARA with a few software projects. Results show that a multi-language approach does not compromise detection performance, and DP-LARA is consistent across the languages we tested it for (i.e., Java and C/C++). Moreover, by providing a virtual AST as the abstract representation, we believe to have decreased the effort of extending the tool to new programming languages and maintaining existing ones.
title Multi-Language Detection of Design Pattern Instances
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03903