JSR 308 Type-checkers and FrameworkMIT Program Analysis Group |
This is the documentation for the JSR 308 Type-checkers and Framework, also known as the “JSR 308 Checkers”. The JSR 308 Checkers distribution contains:
This document is organized as follows.
Section 1.1 describes how to install the JSR 308
Checkers.
Section 2 describes how to use a checker.
The next sections give specific details for the NonNull (Section 3), Interned
(Section 4), Javari (Section 5), and IGJ
(Section 6) checkers.
Section 7 describes an approach for annotating external
libraries.
Section 8 describes how to write a new checker using the checkers framework.
A technical report [PAJ+07] (http://people.csail.mit.edu/mernst/pubs/custom-types-tr047.pdf) describes case studies in which each of the four checkers found previously-unknown errors in real software.
This document uses the terms “checker”, “checker plugin”, “type-checking compiler plugin”, and “annotation processor” as synonyms.
To install the JSR 308 Checkers, simply place file checkers.jar on your classpath. (You must have previously installed the JSR 308 javac compiler.)
The following instructions give detailed steps for installing the JSR 308 Checkers.
wget http://groups.csail.mit.edu/pag/jsr308/releases/jsr308-checkers.zip unzip jsr308-checkers.zip
ant all-tests
You can use the checkers framework in an IDE such as Eclipse by setting the external builder to javac. (A checkers implementation builds on standard mechanisms such as JSR 269 annotation processing, but also accesses the compiler's AST. In the long run, a checker built using the checkers framework should not be dependent on any compiler specifics.) If you do not place the annotations in comments, as in /*@NonNull*/ String, then you should also disable Eclipse's on-the-fly syntax checking.
Building (compiling) the checkers and framework from source creates the checkers.jar file. A pre-compiled checkers.jar is included in the distribution, so building it is optional. It is mostly useful for people who are developing compiler plug-ins (type-checkers). If you only want to use the compiler and existing plug-ins, it is sufficient to use the pre-compiled version.
First, edit checkers/build.properties file so that the compiler.lib property specifies the location of the JSR 308 javac.jar library. (If you also installed the JSR 308 compiler from source, and you made the checkers and langtools directories siblings, then you don't need to edit checkers/build.properties.)
To build checkers.jar, run ant in the checkers directory:
cd checkers ant
Finding bugs with a checker plugin is a two-step process:
The syntax of type qualifier annotations is specified by JSR 308 [EC07]. Ordinary Java permits annotations on declarations. JSR 308 permits annotations anywhere that you would write a type, including generics and casts. You can also write annotations to indicate type qualifiers for array levels and receivers. Here are a few examples:
@Interned String intern() { ... } // return value
int compareTo(@NonNull String other) { ... } // argument
String toString() @ReadOnly { ... } // receiver
@NonNull List<@Interned String> messages; // generic argument
@NonNull String[@Interned] messages; // non-null array of interned Strings
myDate = (@ReadOnly Date) readonlyObject; // cast
For backward compatibility, you may write any annotation inside a /*…*/ Java comment. The JSR 308 compiler will recognize such an annotation, but your code will still compile with pre-JSR-308 compilers. This is useful when your code needs to be compilable by people who are not using the JSR 308 compiler.
When writing source code with annotations, typically you will add
import checkers.quals.*;
at the top of the source file, so that you can write annotations such as @NonNull instead of @checkers.quals.NonNull.
To run a checker plugin, run the JSR 308 compiler javac as usual, but pass the -typeprocessor plugin_class command-line option. Two concrete examples (using the NonNull checker) are:
javac -typeprocessor checkers.nonnull.NonNullChecker MyFile.java javac -typeprocessor checkers.nonnull.NonNullChecker -sourcepath checkers/jdk/nonnull/src MyFile.java
For a discussion of the -sourcepath argument, see Section 7.1.2.
You can always compile the code without the -typeprocessor command-line option, but in that case no checking of the type annotations is performed.
A checker plugin reads annotations from the source code or .class files of classes that are used by the code being compiled and checked. If annotated code uses unannotated code (e.g., libraries or the JDK), then the checker may issue warnings. For example, the NonNull checker (Section 3) will warn whenever an unannotated library call result is used in a non-null context:
@NonNull myvar = library_call(); // WARNING: library_call may return a null value
If the library call can return null, you should fix the bug in your program by removing the @NonNull annotation. If the library call never returns null, there are two general ways to prevent compiler warnings: add the missing annotations (Section 2.3.1), or suppress the warnings (Section 2.4).
You may be able to obtain a version of the library that contains the annotations, or a set of external annotations that describe the library. For example, the JSR 308 Checkers distribution contains such annotations for popular libraries, such as the JDK. Section 7.1.2 describes how to use them.
Otherwise, you will need to annotate the library, using one of these techniques:
If you annotate additional libraries, please share them with us so that we can distribute the annotations with the JSR 308 Checkers; see Section 2.7.
You may wish to suppress checker warnings because of un-annotated libraries or un-annotated portions of your own code, because of application invariants that are beyond the capabilities of the type system, because of checker limitations, because you are interested in only some of the guarantees provided by a checker, or for other reasons. You can suppress warnings via
You can suppress an entire class of warnings via javac's -Alint command-line option. Following -Alint=, write a list of option names. If the option name is preceded by a hyphen (-), that disables the option; otherwise it enables it. For example: -Alint=-dotequals causes the Interned checker (Section 4) not to output advice about when a.equals(b) could be replaced by a==b.
You can suppress specific errors and warnings by use of the @SuppressWarnings("annotationname") annotation, for example @SuppressWarnings("interned"). This may be placed on program elements such as a class, method, or local variable declaration. It is good practice to suppress warnings in the smallest possible scope.
You can suppress errors and warnings pertaining to un-annotated (or other)
classes by setting the checkers.skipClasses Java property to a
regular expression that matches classes for which warnings and errors
should be suppressed. For example, if you use
“-Dcheckers.skipClasses=^java\.” on the command line when invoking
javac, then the checkers will suppress warnings relating to uses of
classes in the java package.
(Note that if your javac is a script rather than a binary, it may
not support JVM flags such as -D; in that case, you may need to edit
javac script itself to pass the -D flag. This is a flaw in
the OpenJDK build process, which we will try to correct in a future release.)
You can also compile parts of your code without use of the -typeprocessor switch to javac. No checking is done during such compilations.
Finally, some checkers have special rules. For example, the NonNull checker (Section 3) uses assert statements that contain null checks, along with the flow-sensitive type inference (Section 2.5), to suppress warnings.
You can also compile parts of your code without use of the -typeprocessor switch to javac. No checking is done during such compilations.
In order to reduce the burden of annotating types in your program, some checkers treat certain variables and expressions as being annotated, even if you have not annotated them. For instance, the NonNull checker (Section 3) can automatically determine that certain variables are nonnull, without you having to annotate them. The Interned checker (Section 4) also has this functionality, and new checkers that you write can also take advantage of it.
For example, a variable or expression can be treated as @NonNull from the time that it is either assigned a non-null value or checked against null (e.g., via an assertion, if statement, or being dereferenced), until it might be re-assigned (e.g., via an assignment that might affect this variable, or via a method call that might affect this variable).
As with explicit annotations, the implicitly non-null types permit dereferences, and assignments to explicitly non-null types, without compiler warnings.
For example, consider this code, along with comments indicating whether the NonNull checker issues a warning. Note that the same expression may yield a warning or not depending on its context.
// Requires an argument of type @NonNull String
void parse(@NonNull String toParse) { ... }
// Argument does NOT have a @NonNull type
void lex(String toLex) {
parse(toLex); // warning: toLex might be null
if (toLex != null) {
parse(toLex); // no warning: toLex is known to be non-null
}
parse(toLex); // warning: toLex might be null
toLex = new String(...);
parse(toLex); // no warning: toLex is known to be non-null
}
If you find instances where you think a value should be inferred to have (or not have) a given annotation, but the checker does not do so, please submit a bug report (see Section 2.7) that includes a small piece of Java code that reproduces the problem.
Type inference is never performed for method parameters of non-private methods and for non-private fields, because unknown client code could use them in arbitrary ways. The inferred information is never written to the .class file as user-written annotations are.
The inference indicates when a variable can be treated as having a subtype of its declared type; for instance, when an otherwise nullable type can be treated as a @NonNull one. The inference never treats a variable as a supertype of its declared type (e.g., an expression of @NonNull type is never inferred to be treated as possibly-null).
A checker can guarantee that a particular property holds throughout the code. For example, the non-null checker (Section 3) guarantees that every expression whose type is a @NonNull type never evaluates to null. The interned checker (Section 4) guarantees that every expression whose type is an @Interned type evaluates to an interned value. The checker makes its guarantee by examining every part of your program and verifying that no part of the program violates the guarantee.
There are some limitations to the guarantee.
A checker can be useful in finding bugs or in verifying part of a program, even if the checker is unable to verify the correctness of an entire program.
If you have any problems with any checker, or with the checkers framework, please let us know at jsr308-bugs@lists.csail.mit.edu. In addition to bug reports, we welcome suggestions, annotated libraries, bug fixes, new features, new checker plugins, and other improvements.
Please ensure that your bug report is clear and that it is complete. Otherwise, we may be unable to understand it or to reproduce it, either of which would prevent us from fixing the bug. Your bug report will be most helpful if you:
The JSR 308 Checkers distribution was developed in the MIT Program Analysis Group. The JSR 308 checkers framework was implemented by Matthew M. Papi. The non-null checker was implemented by Matthew M. Papi. The interned checker was implemented by Matthew M. Papi. The Javari checker was implemented by Telmo Correa. The IGJ checker was implemented by Mahmood Ali. Many users have provided valuable feedback.
Differences from previous versions of the checkers and framework can be found in the changelog-checkers.txt file. This file is included in the checkers distribution and is also available on the web at http://groups.csail.mit.edu/pag/jsr308/dist/changelog-checkers.txt.
If the NonNull checker issues no warnings for a given program, then running that program will never throw a null pointer exception. This guarantee enables a programmer to prevent errors from occurring when his program is run. See Section 3.4 for caveats to the guarantee.
In order to perform checking, you must annotate your code. You can write the @NonNull type annotation, which indicates a type that does not include the null value, or the @Nullable type annotation, which indicates a type that does include null. You only have to write one of these, depending on whether you choose the default qualifier (for unannotated references; see Section 3.2) to be @NonNull or @Nullable.
A variable of type Boolean always has one of the values TRUE, FALSE, or null. By contrast, a variable of type @NonNull Boolean always has one of the values TRUE or FALSE — never null. Dereferencing an expression of type @NonNull Boolean can never cause a null pointer exception.
The checker issues a warning in two cases:
This example shows both sorts of problems:
Object obj; // might be null @NonNull Object nnobj; // never null ... nnobj.toString() // checker warning: dereference might cause null pointer exception nnobj = obj; // checker warning: nnobj may become null
Parameter passing and return values are checked analogously to assignments.
You can control the behavior of the NonNull checker via the -Alint options flow, cast, and cast:redundant.
By default, the NonNull checker regards unannotated types as possibly-null (or “nullable”). This behavior may be overridden for individual classes or methods using the @checkes.quals.Default annotation.
The @Default annotation has a single argument for the fully qualified String name of an annotation. If the NonNull checker finds a @Default("checkers.quals.NonNull") annotation enclosing the scope in which it is currently checking, it treats all types in that scope as though they are annotated with @NonNull. The @Nullable annotation may be used to locally override the effects of the @Default annotation.
This example illustrates the use of the @Default and @Nullable annotations:
@Default("checkers.quals.NonNull")
public boolean compile(File file) {
if (!file.exists()) // no warning: file is @NonNull by default
return false;
@Nullable File srcPath = ...;
// ...
if (srcPath.exists()) // warning: srcPath might be null
// ...
}
The @checkers.quals.Default provides a second type of default, known as “NonNull Except Locals” (NNEL). NNEL is specified via an additional argument to the @Default annotation: @Default(value="checkers.quals.NonNull", types={DefaultLocation.ALL_EXCEPT_LOCALS}). If the NonNull checker finds this annotation enclosing the scope in which it is currently checking, it treats all types in that scope as though they are annotated with @NonNull unless the type is the raw type of a local variable. The NNEL default reduces the programmer's annotation burden, especially in conjunction with the flow-sensitive type inference in Section 2.5.
To try the @NonNull checker on a source file that uses the @NonNull qualifier, use the following command (where javac is the JSR 308 compiler):
javac -typeprocessor checkers.nonnull.NonnullChecker examples/NonNullExample.java
Compilation will complete without warnings.
To see the checker warn about incorrect usage of annotations (and therefore the possibility of a null pointer exception at run time), use the following command:
javac -typeprocessor checkers.nonnull.NonnullChecker examples/NonNullExampleWithWarnings.java
The compiler will issue three warnings regarding violation of the semantics of @NonNull.
The NonNull checker itself is annotated with @NonNull.
In addition, you can run the NonNull checker on the annotation scene library, another library that has been fully annotated with @NonNull. To run the NonNull checker on the annotation scene library, first download the scene library suite (which includes build dependencies for the scene library as well as its source code) and extract it into your checkers installation. The checker can then be run on the annotation scene library with Apache Ant using the following commands:
cd checkers ant -f scene-lib-test.xml
You can view the annotated source code, which contains @NonNull annotations, in the checkers/scene-lib-test/src/annotations/ directory.
The NonNull checker prevents null pointer errors in your code. In addition to the caveats for any checker (Section 2.6), there are two additional caveats:
The JSR 308 Checkers @NonNull annotation is similar, but not identical, to the @NotNull annotation of IntelliJ IDEA, the @NonNull annotation of FindBugs, the non_null modifier of JML, and annotations proposed by JSR 305, among others.
If the Interned checker issues no warnings for a given program, then all reference equality tests (i.e., “==”) in that program operate on interned types. Interning can save memory and can speed up testing for equality by permitting use of ==; however, use of == on non-interned values can result in subtle bugs. For example:
Integer x = new Integer(22); Integer y = new Integer(22); System.out.println(x == y); // prints false!
The Interned checker helps programmers to prevent such bugs. The Interned checker also helps to prevent performance problems that result from failure to use interning. (See Section 2.6 for caveats to the checker's guarantees.)
In order to perform checking, you must annotate your code with the @Interned type annotation, which indicates a type for the canonical representation of an object:
String s1 = ...; // type is (uninterned) "String" @Interned String s2 = ...; // Java type is "String", but checker treats as "Interned String"
The type system enforced by the checker plugin ensures that only interned values can be assigned to s2.
To specify that all objects of a given type are interned, annotate the class declaration:
public @Interned class MyInternedClass { ... }
This is equivalent to annotating every use of MyInternedClass, in a declaration or elsewhere. For example, enum classes are implicitly so annotated.
Objects of an @Interned type may be safely compared using the “==” operator.
The checker issues a warning in two cases:
This example shows both sorts of problems:
Object obj;
@Interned Object iobj;
...
if (obj == iobj) { ... } // checker warning: reference equality test is unsafe
iobj = obj; // checker warning: iobj's referent may no longer be interned
String literals and the null literal are always considered interned, and object creation expressions (using new) are never considered @Interned unless they are annotated as such, as in
@Interned Double internedDoubleZero = new @Interned Double(0); // canonical representation for Double zero
The checker also issues a warning when .equals is used where == could be safely used. You can disable this behavior via the javac -Alint command-line option, like so: -Alint=-dotequals.
To try the @Interned checker on a source file that uses the @Interned qualifier, use the following command (where javac is the JSR 308 compiler):
javac -typeprocessor checkers.interned.InternedChecker examples/InternedExample.java
Compilation will complete without warnings.
To see the checker warn about incorrect usage of annotations, use the following command:
javac -typeprocessor checkers.interned.InternedChecker examples/InternedExampleWithWarnings.java
The compiler will issue a warning regarding violation of the semantics of @Interned.
The Daikon invariant detector (http://groups.csail.mit.edu/pag/daikon/) is also annotated with @Interned.
IGJ is a Java language extension that helps programmers to avoid mutation errors that result from unintended side effects. If the Javari checker issues no warnings for a given program, then that program will never change objects that should not be changed. This guarantee enables a programmer to detect and prevent mutation-related errors. (See Section 2.6 for caveats to the guarantee.) The Javari webpage (http://groups.csail.mit.edu/pag/javari/) gives pointers to papers that explain the Javari language and type system.
The Javari webpage also contains a separate program, the Javarifier (http://groups.csail.mit.edu/pag/javari/javarifier/), which infers Javari types for an existing program. The Javarifier inserts Javari annotations in a Java program or in .class files. This has two benefits: it relieves the programmer of the tedium of writing annotations (though the programmer can always refine the inferred annotations), and it annotates libraries, permitting checking of programs that use those libraries. (Annotation of libraries is not as critical for other type systems such as the NonNull checker (Section 3) and the Interned checker (Section 4).)
The Javari checker uses an annotation-based dialect of the Javari language.
The supported annotations are @ReadOnly, @Mutable, @Assignable, @QReadOnly and @RoMaybe, that correspond to the Javari keywords readonly, mutable, assignable, ? readonly, and romaybe, respectively.
The @ReadOnly type annotation indicates that a reference provides only read-only access. The checker issues an error whenever mutation happens through a readonly reference, when fields of a readonly reference which are not explicitly marked with @Assignable are reassigned, or when a readonly expression is assigned to a mutable variable. The checker also emits a warning when casts increase the mutability access of a reference.
The @Mutable annotation ensures that a reference is mutable, no matter the inherited mutability.
The @QReadOnly annotation is a mutability wildcard that can be applied to types (for example, List<@QReadOnly Date>). As such, it allows only the operations which are allowed for both readonly and mutable types.
The @RoMaybe annotation simulates mutability overloading. It can be applied to methods and parameters. Read the @RoMaybe Javadoc for more details.
To try the Javari checker on a source file that uses the Javari qualifier, use the following command, where javac is the JSR 308 compiler, or specify just one of the test files.
javac -typeprocessor checkers.javari.JavariChecker tests/javari/*.java
The compiler should issue the errors and warnings (if any) specified in the .out files with same name.
To run the test suite for the Javari checker, use ant javari-tests.
The Javari checker itself is also annotated with Javari annotations.
IGJ is a Java language extension that helps programmers to avoid mutation errors that result from unintended side effects. If the IGJ checker issues no warnings for a given program, then that program will never change objects that should not be changed. This guarantee enables a programmer to detect and prevent mutation-related errors. (See Section 2.6 for caveats to the guarantee.)
IGJ permits a programmer to express that a particular object should never be modified via any reference (object immutability), or that a reference should never be used to modify its referent (reference immutability). Once a programmer has expressed these facts, an automatic checker analyzes the code to either locate mutability bugs or to guarantee that the code contains no such bugs.
To learn the details of the IGJ language and type system, please see the ESEC/FSE 2007 paper “Object and reference immutability using Java generics” [ZPA+07]. The IGJ checker supports Annotation IGJ (Section 6.3), which is slightly different dialect of IGJ than that described in the ESEC/FSE paper.
The supported annotations are @ReadOnly, @Mutable, @Immutable, @Assignable, and @AssignsFields, as specified in the IGJ paper. The @I(string) annotation is added to mimic the template behavior of generics.
The @ReadOnly type annotation indicates that a reference provides only read-only access. The checker issues an error whenever mutation happens through a readonly reference, when fields of a readonly reference which are not explicitly marked with @Assignable are reassigned, or when a readonly expression is assigned to a mutable variable. The checker also emits a warning when casts increase the mutability access of a reference.
The @Mutable annotation ensures that a reference is mutable, no matter the inherited mutability. @AssignsFields similar, but permits only limited mutation — assignment of fields — and is for use by constructor helper methods.
The @Immutable annotation ensures that a reference is to an immutable object.
The @I annotation simulates mutability overloading. It can be applied to classes, methods and parameters. See Section 6.3.3.
The IGJ checker supports the Annotation IGJ dialect of IGJ. The syntax of Annotation IGJ is based on JSR 308 annotations.
The syntax of the original IGJ dialect [ZPA+07] was based on Java 5's generics and annotation mechanisms. The original IGJ dialect was not backward-compatible with Java (either syntactically or semantically). The dialect of IGJ checked by the IGJ checker corrects these problems.
The differences between the Annotation IGJ dialect and the original IGJ dialect are as follows.
Vector<Mutable, Integer> <: Vector<ReadOnly, Integer>
<: Vector<ReadOnly, Number>
<: Vector<ReadOnly, Object>
@I is a template annotation over IGJ Immutability annotations. It acts similarly to type variables in Java's generic types, and the name @I mimics the standard <I> type variable name used in code written in the original IGJ dialect. The annotation value string is used to distinguish between multiple instances of @I — in the generics-based original dialect, these would be expressed as two type variables <I> and <J>.
A class annotated with @I could be declared with any IGJ Immutability annotation. The actual immutability that @I is resolved to dictates the immutability type for all the non-static appearances of @I with the same value as the class declaration.
Example:
@I
public class FileDescriptor {
private @Immutable Date creationData;
private @I Date lastModData;
public @I Date getLastModDate() @ReadOnly { }
}
...
void useFileDescriptor() {
@Mutable FileDescriptor file =
new @Mutable FileDescriptor(...);
...
@Mutable Data date = file.getLastModDate();
}
In the last example, @I was resolved to @Mutable for the instance file.
For example, it could be used for method parameters, return values, and the actual IGJ immutability value would be resolved based on the method invocation.
For example, method getMidpoint returns a Point with the same immutability type as the passed parameters if p1 and p2 match in immutability, otherwise @I is resolved to @ReadOnly:
static @I Point getMidpoint(@I Point p1, @I Point p2) { ... }
The @I annotation value distinguishes between @I declarations. So, method findUnion returns a collection of the same immutability type as the first collection parameter:
static <E> @I("Second") Collection<E> findUnion(@I("First") Collection<E> col1,
@I("Second") Collection<E> col2) { ... }
To try the IGJ checker on a source file that uses the IGJ qualifier, use the following command, where javac is the JSR 308 compiler.
javac -typeprocessor checkers.igj.IGJChecker examples/IGJExample.java
The IGJ checker itself is also annotated with IGJ annotations.
When annotated code uses unannotated code (e.g., libraries such as the JDK), a checker may issue warnings (see Section 2.3). As described in Section 2.3.1, the best way to correct this problem is to add annotations to the library.
One way to do so is to annotate a “skeleton class” version of the library and use it during compilation (only). A skeleton class has trivial method bodies that always throw an exception.
There are two steps to creating, and two steps to using, a skeleton class. We illustrate them via the example of creating a @NonNull-annotated version of java.lang.Set. (You don't need to repeat these steps, since such a skeleton class is already included in the JSR 308 Checkers distribution.)
First, you must install the skeleton class generator (Section 7.2).
cd checkers/jdk/nonnull/src java checkers.util.skel.Skeleton java.util.Set > java/util/Set.java
Supply it with the fully-qualified name of the class for which you wish to generate a skeleton class. The skeleton class generator prints the skeleton class to standard out, so you may wish to redirect its output to a file. See Section 7.2 for installation instructions for the skeleton class generator.
public abstract @NonNull java.util.Iterator<E> iterator();
javac -typeprocessor checkers.nonnull.NonnullChecker -sourcepath checkers/jdk/nonnull/src my_source_files
Source code for the skeleton class generator tool is included in the checkers distribution, but because the tool has additional dependencies, the provided build script does not build the tool by default.
Follow these steps to install the skeleton class generator:
This section describes how to write a checker — a type-checking compiler plugin that detects bugs or verifies their absence. After a programmer annotates a program using JSR 308 annotations, the checker plug-in verifies that the code is consistent with the annotations. If you only want to use a checker, you do not need to read this section.
In addition to reading this section of the manual, you may find it helpful to examine the implementations of the checkers that are distributed with the Checkers Framework, or to create your checker by modifying another one.
A checker consists of three classes: a visitor, a type factory, and a compiler interface. The Checkers Framework provides abstract base classes (default implementations), and a specific checker overrides as little or as much of the default implementations as necessary (see Sections 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4).
The visitor class performs type-checking at each node of the source file's AST. The abstract base visitor issues a warning whenever the type system induced by the type qualifier is violated. For example, it is illegal to assign a supertype to a subtype in Java, so this assignment is not permitted (assuming the obvious variable declarations):
myNonNullObject = myObject; // invalid assignment
In addition to assignments, the base visitor checks method arguments, receivers, return values, overriding, and other Java constructs. The base visitor also provides hooks that are called by the annotation processing facility [Dar06], and it reports errors via the Java compiler's messaging mechanism [vdA06].
The type factory class, given an AST node, returns the annotated type of that expression. The abstract base type factory class provided by the Checkers Framework supplies a uniform, Tree-API-based interface for querying the annotations on a program element, regardless of whether that element is declared in a source file or in a class file. It also handles default annotations, and it optionally performs flow-sensitive local type inference.
The compiler interface class performs all subtyping tests, including accounting for arrays, generics, wildcards, etc. A programmer supplies the compiler interface class name as a javac -typeprocessor argument, so the compiler interface usually has a name like NonNullChecker or InternedChecker.
The visitor class uses the visitor design pattern to traverse Java source syntax trees (as provided by the semi-public Tree API and not the internal javac tree representation). The abstract base class checkers.source.SourceVisitor type-checks each AST node as it is visited.
The visitor overrides one method in the base visitor for each special rule in the type qualifier system. For example, the visitor for the Nullness type system of Section 3 consists of a single 4-line method that warns if an expression of Nullable type is dereferenced, as in:
myObject.hashCode(); // invalid dereference
The abstract class SourceVisitor is a wrapper around TreePathScanner for performing type-checking using the annotation processing API and the Annotated*Type classes. To extend SourceVisitor, override the appropriate visit* method from TreeScanner (these methods have specific tree nodes for parameters, i.e., visitAssignment has an argument of type AssignmentTree). The protected member AnnotatedTypeFactory factory can be used to create AnnotatedTypeMirrors for querying the annotations on/in a tree node.
The “Annotated Types” framework in checkers.types can be used to obtain annotations on tree nodes. The AnnotatedTypeFactory class has getAnnotatedType methods that take either a tree node or an element and return an AnnotatedTypeMirror.
The checker-specific type factory accounts for implicit annotations. For example, the Interned checker (Section 4) has a type factory that treats every String literal, such as "JSR 308", as having type @Interned String (because Java guarantees that property).
The base class for checkers is checkers.source.SourceChecker, which subclasses of Sun's AbstractProcessor. The abstract base compiler interface invokes the visitor class on each input source file.
The compiler interface defines the type hierarchy; for instance, the hierarchy of the NonNull checker (Section 3) is defined as
this.relation = new SimpleSubtypeRelation(NONNULL, NULLABLE);
indicating that a type with a NonNull annotation is a subtype of the same type with a Nullable annotation.
A checker can customize the default error messages by overriding the getMessages method. It returns a java.util.Properties instance where the keys are the strings passed to SourceChecker.report (like "invalid.assignment") and the values are the strings to be printed ("cannot assign ...").
Otherwise, the compiler interface mainly contains boilerplate, such as the names of the visitor, type factory, and annotation classes, and the prefix for checker-specific command-line options. Additionally, as recommended by the annotation processing API, checker classes may be annotated with the SupportedAnnotationTypes and SupportedSourceVersion annotations.
BaseTypeChecker and BaseTypeVisitor in the checker.basetype package implement a generic type-checker for type qualifiers for which the qualified type is the subtype of the unqualified type. Many type qualifiers, including @NonNull and @Interned, fall into this category.
BaseTypeChecker extends SourceChecker, and it provides two primary services:
BaseTypeVisitor extends SourceVisitor, providing a type-checking visitor implementation that currently checks and reports six errors:
Many type-checkers need to override only a few methods in BaseTypeVisitor.
Here is the source code for a complete checker. It checks the Lovely annotation (which we have made up for the purposes of illustration). The checker overrides only the compiler interface; more sophisticated checkers would involve more code.
To try the Lovely checker, execute the following commands (those preceded by a number sign are comments):
# First, compile the Lovely annotation and the checker. javac Lovely.java LovelyChecker.java # The test program compiles correctly using ordinary javac. javac LovelyTest.java # The checker warns of a type mismatch in the annotations. javac -typeprocessor LovelyChecker LovelyTest.java
Here is a transcript of the commands, where the command line prompt is #:
% javac Lovely.java LovelyChecker.java
% javac LovelyTest.java
% javac -typeprocessor LovelyChecker LovelyTest.java
LovelyTest.java:4: (assignment.invalid)
@Lovely double vol = rate;
^
1 error
%
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| LovelyChecker.java | ||||||||||||||
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The checkers distribution includes the Custom checker, which performs typechecking with no special semantics beyond standard subtyping rules and operates over annotations specified by a user on the command line.
The Custom checker is ideal for type systems that do not require implicit annotations (e.g., as string literals are implicitly considered @NonNull) or special checks (e.g., warning about dereferences of possibly-null values). For such type systems, the type system creator is encouraged to use the Custom checker and does not need to write any code beyond declarations for the annotations used by the type system.
The Custom checker is also useful to type system creators that wish to experiment with a checker before writing code; the Custom checker demonstrates the functionality that a checker inherits from the checkers framework.
The Custom checker is used in the same way as other checkers (using the -processor option; see Section 2), except that uses two annotation processor arguments via the standard “-A” switch:
Note that the annotation provided via the command-line must be accessible to the compiler during compilation, either on the classpath or sourcepath or as one of the .java files passed to the compiler.
Consider a hypothetical Encrypted type qualifier, which denotes that the representation of an object (such as a String, CharSequence, or byte[]) is encrypted. To use the Custom checker for the Encrypted type system, first define an annotation for the Encrypted qualifier:
package myquals;
/**
* Denotes that the representation of an object is encrypted.
* ...
*/
public @interface Encrypted {}
Then, write add @Encrypted annotations to your program:
public @Encrypted String encrypt(String text) {
// ...
}
// Only send encrypted data!
public void sendOverInternet(@Encrypted String msg) {
// ...
}
void sendText() {
// ...
@Encrypted String ciphertext = encrypt(plaintext);
sendOverInternet(ciphertext);
// ...
}
void sendPassword() {
String password = getUserPassword();
sendOverInternet(password);
}
Finally, invoke the compiler with the Custom checker, specifying the @Encrypted annotation using the -Aqual option:
$ javac -processor checkers.util.CustomChecker \
-Aqual=myquals.Encrypted YourProgram.java
YourProgram.java:42: incompatible types.
found : java.lang.String
required: @myquals.Encrypted java.lang.String
sendOverInternet(password);
^
The checkers framework provides debugging options that can be helpful when writing checker. These are provided via the standard javac “-A” switch, which is used to pass options to an annotation processor.
The following example demonstrates how these options are used:
$ javac -processor checkers.interned.InternedChecker \
examples/InternedExampleWithWarnings.java -Ashowchecks -Anomsgtext -Afilenames
[InternedChecker] InternedExampleWithWarnings.java
success (line 18): STRING_LITERAL "foo"
actual: DECLARED @checkers.quals.Interned java.lang.String
expected: DECLARED @checkers.quals.Interned java.lang.String
success (line 19): NEW_CLASS new String("bar")
actual: DECLARED java.lang.String
expected: DECLARED java.lang.String
examples/InternedExampleWithWarnings.java:21: (not.interned)
if (foo == bar)
^
success (line 22): STRING_LITERAL "foo == bar"
actual: DECLARED @checkers.quals.Interned java.lang.String
expected: DECLARED java.lang.String
1 error
This section is relevant only if you wish to add your checker to the source code repository for the checkers framework — for example, to include your checker in the JSR 308 Checkers distribution.
The JSR 308 checkers appear in directory annotations/checkers/ of the annotations repository. It contains the following relevant subdirectories: