feature: add support for execution/control flow analysis

[tempuser1909]

Hi,

I would like to ask if it has been proposed to have execution/control flow analysis?

For example, instead having just one CtModel when you call launcher#buildModel(), Spoon can have another model (maybe something like CtExecutionModel/CtExecutionGraph) that is still tied to CtModel but allows user to analyze the parsed code in a different way.

Or maybe Spoon is just meant to be purely for AST analysis?

Thank you.

[pvojtechovsky]

There is an experimental project on github which contains such spoon extension for control flow analysis. But it is actually not up to date with latest Spoon and it is not finished. But I am sure it would be good starting point. I agree that it would be nice to have it as part of Spoon core too.
@monperrus what is the link to that project?

[nharrand]

Maybe this one?
But I agree it would be nice to have!

[monperrus]

See also:
https://github.com/DIVERSIFY-project/syringe.
(would be great to port both https://github.com/marcelinorc/spooncontrolflow and https://github.com/DIVERSIFY-project/syringe here)

[monperrus]

@tempuser1909 such a feature would be welcome, do you plan to contribute with a pull-request?

[tempuser1909]

@monperrus, I can try and see if I can implement such a big feature.

I will first try implementing one of the issues I have raised a couple months ago (#2396).

And once I am comfortable with developing/compiling Spoon and with Spoon internals, I will try my hand at implementing this.

[pvojtechovsky]

I can try and see if I can implement such a big feature.
And once I am comfortable with developing/compiling Spoon and with Spoon internals, I will try my hand at implementing this.

It sounds really great! You have our support! 👍

I will first try implementing one of the issues I have raised a couple months (#2396).

It would be nice to have it too, but may be with sniper printing mode this feature is not so urgent for you?

[tempuser1909]

Yes, it is not as urgent with Sniper mode. However, I thought that it would be easier to implement and at the same time get to know Spoon's internals better with that issue first.

[nharrand]

I guess #2827 implements this feature request. So, I am closing this. Don't hesitate to reopen if it's missing something.

[monperrus]

FYI:
TinyPDG https://github.com/YoshikiHigo/TinyPDG is a library for building control flow graphs (CFGs) and program dependency graphs (PDGs) from Java source code. It also includes functionality to detect code clones by using the built PDGs. By @YoshikiHigo

[lsafina]

Hello! It is probably too late for this post, but I was looking for java to CFG library, and unfortunately haven't found this thread at the beginning (*feeling super dumb*). So I wrote my converter, completely based on Spoon model. I leave the link here, maybe someone will be interested https://gitlab.inria.fr/lsafina/java-cfg-builder

P.S: After finding this thread I wanted to check on control-flow library, but wasn't able to resolve the dependency and to find it at https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/fr.inria.gforge.spoon. Is it alright?

[monperrus]

thanks for the pointer.

yes, spoon-control-flow is not deployed on Maven Central, you can build and install from source.

[LakshyAAAgrawal]

Shall I create a PR to remove the following lines from https://github.com/INRIA/spoon/tree/master/spoon-control-flow/README.md

To use it with maven, add the following dependency to your pom.xml

    <dependency>
        <groupId>fr.inria.gforge.spoon</groupId>
        <artifactId>spoon-control-flow</artifactId>
        <version>0.0.2</version>
    </dependency>

[monperrus]

yes, PRs to improve documentation are much welcome!