Java reflection API: revealing the dark side of the mirror

Abstract

Developers of widely used Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) implement and test the Java Reflection API based on a Javadoc, which is specified using a natural language. However, there is limited knowledge on whether Java Reflection API developers are able to systematically reveal i) underdetermined specifications; and ii) non-conformances between their implementation and the Javadoc. Moreover, current automatic test suite generators cannot be used to detect them. To better understand the problem, we analyze test suites of two widely used JVMs, and we conduct a survey with 130 developers who use the Java Reflection API to see whether the Javadoc impacts on their understanding. We also propose a technique to detect underdetermined specifications and non-conformances between the Javadoc and the implementations of the Java Reflection API. It automatically creates test cases, and executes them using different JVMs. Then, we manually execute some steps to identify underdetermined specifications and to confirm whether a non-conformance candidate is indeed a bug. We evaluate our technique in 439 input programs. Our technique identifies underdetermined specification and non-conformance candidates in 32 Java Reflection API public methods of 7 classes. We report underdetermined specification candidates in 12 Java Reflection API methods. Java Reflection API specifiers accept 3 underdetermined specification candidates (25%). We also report 24 non-conformance candidates to Eclipse OpenJ9 JVM, and 7 to Oracle JVM. Eclipse OpenJ9 JVM developers accept and fix 21 candidates (87.5%), and Oracle JVM developers accept 5 and fix 4 non-conformance candidates.