A Non-Null Annotation Inferencer for Java Bytecode

TL;DR

This paper introduces an improved non-null annotation inference method for Java bytecode, enhancing precision and efficiency, enabling practical analysis of production applications within minutes.

Contribution

It extends previous non-null inference analysis to Java bytecode, demonstrating practical implementation and significant precision improvements.

Findings

Substantial increase in analysis precision

Analysis completes within minutes for production applications

Effective extension of prior analysis to bytecode

Abstract

We present a non-null annotations inferencer for the Java bytecode language. We previously proposed an analysis to infer non-null annotations and proved it soundness and completeness with respect to a state of the art type system. This paper proposes extensions to our former analysis in order to deal with the Java bytecode language. We have implemented both analyses and compared their behaviour on several benchmarks. The results show a substantial improvement in the precision and, despite being a whole-program analysis, production applications can be analyzed within minutes.