JAVACHECK: A Domain Specific Language for the Static Analysis of Java Code

The increasing complexity of software systems has raised the need for code analysis tools to assess its quality. However, these tools offer predefined metrics or evaluation criteria, which are frequently hard to extend or modify. For this purpose, we have developed JAVACHECK, a DomainSpecific Language targeted to define expected properties of Java code bases. JAVACHECK can be used in a variety of scenarios related to quality assurance: to define expected code styles (e.g., naming conventions), specify programming conventions (e.g., private attributes), detect code smells possibly indicating errors (e.g., equals method with no hashCode), and detect patterns (e.g., uses of Singleton) or requirements demanded in a project (e.g., a class with name synonym to “Professor”).