Detecting unanticipated mutual recursion using Elegant Objects representation of object-oriented programs

TL;DR

This paper explores using Elegant Objects as an intermediate representation for object-oriented programs to detect unanticipated mutual recursion and fragile base class issues, offering a new approach to static analysis.

Contribution

It introduces plausible EO representations of class-based constructs and proposes an algorithm to detect fragile base class patterns within EO programs.

Findings

EO can represent class-based constructs from Java, C++, and Python

An algorithm can detect some fragile base class patterns in EO

Using EO as an intermediate language is feasible for static analysis

Abstract

Elegant Objects (EO) is a variation of the object-oriented programming paradigm that favors pure objects and decoration. EO programming language is based on these ideas and has been suggested by Bugayenko as an intermediate representation for object-oriented programs. This paper provides plausible representations in EO of some class-based constructions from Java, C++, and Python. We then reformulate the classical fragile base class problem in the context of these representations. Finally, we discuss an algorithm for detecting a subset of fragile base class patterns in EO programs. We show that using EO as an intermediate language is plausible and discuss possible improvements to the language to assist in richer static analysis.