Agent to count objects inside methods using ByteBuddy - java

I'm looking for a way of count how many different objects are being called inside a method using ByteBuddy for byte code analysis. I tried this with string parsing, but that's absolutely impossible. Also, I've checked about AST, but I should build the code before doing that, what would be a lot of time. By this, it would be preferable if I could create an agent.
Given the following code:
#Test
public void myMethod(){
Boolean myObj = false;
assertTrue(myObj).isTrue();
assertTrue(myObj2).isTrue();
}
The output for analysis for this method would be: (myObj, myObj2). As I'm new to JavaBuddy, my approach to this would be:
Create an element matcher that would find for methods annotated with #Test .
Intercept it
.... here's the problem: I don't know how should I count those objects or iterate through method statements.
Can anybody give me some links about it or samples?

In order to instrument code within a method, Byte Buddy allows you to use ASM to instrument the code instruction-wise. The reason for this is that ASM is a very good API for byte code processing already and there is no real good reason to replace it with something that would end up being rather similar.
If you want to learn about ASM, their webpage offers a great documentation.
Nevertheless, what you intend to is pretty complex to do. You basically have to follow the control flow of the method to see what object is assigned to what variable at any point in time. Also, some classes cannot be instrumented such as the Boolean class which is why I would recommend you to find another approach to your problem.

Related

"Find usages" functionality as an IntelliJ plugin

I'm trying to find a way in IntelliJ IDEA to find all the usages of a few library method calls and classes in a particular project.
The goal is to compile a list of classes which make reference to these specific methods or classes.
How can I go about this, I can see there is a MethodReferencesSearch which looks like it could be helpful, however the search method requires an instance of PsiMethod.
How can I create an instance of PSI method that matches the method in a particular lib class (say I wanted to find all the usages of the concat(...) method in Java's String class
Basically I'm trying to build a plugin that will generate a graph of certain method calls from within a project. For example something that would graph a set of routes by looking for certain method calls in a library. I.e. if Class A calls x(T) with type class B and class B calls x(T) with type of Class C, I would have a graph that looks like A -> B -> C etc. Find usages is great, it just doesnt work well for my needs.
You can get the true PsiMethod by JavaPsiFacade.getInstance(...).findClass("java.lang.String", ...allScope(...)).findsMethodByName("concat", false)[0]. This method can then be passed to MethodReferenceSearch.
I am presuming that you can't guarantee that you have a usage of concat easily available (for example, at the user's cursor position in an open document).
A hacky way to do it would be to create a small, correct, self-contained java class in a String, like below:
class Nothing { String s = "a".concat("b"); }
Then, there is a way (if I remember correctly) to use IntelliJ to parse the class contained in this String, thereby giving you a PsiReference to the method you want to find usages on (in this case, concat).
Would this approach be useful to you?
If so, I can dig out a code example on how this can be done.

How to unit test a private functionality

I have a question regarding unit testing.
I have a function which does the following thing:
void myFunction(List<MyClass> myList) {
// 1. Sort the list
// 2. Post Process the list
}
Now I want to test this function. But the problem is I should not test these two things at the same time. I am therefore thinking to extract the "Post Process the list" part as a separate function.
But the problem is the task of "Post Process the list" is only used by myFunction and I want to make it private to the class.
If I make it private I won't be able to test it from outside.
What is the general rule of this kind of scenario? Must I change a private function to public only for testing?
Or if there are any other patterns I should use?
Many thanks
The test method only needs to be package-local.
You can call private methods using reflections and there are mocking libraries which allow you to test private methods. But I would just make it package-local as it shows the method is access from elsewhere in the package (which it is either way)
As others have said, you don't need to make the method public, just package visible.
Google Guava has a #VisibleForTesting annotation which is meant for situations like this. You put this annotation on a method, just to document that the reason that the method isn't private is only for testing. The annotation doesn't do anything, it's just meant as a warning for programmers that they shouldn't call it from outside the class. (Some static code checking tool could in principle check if methods with this annotation aren't called from anywhere except inside the class or from test code).
Ofcourse it's kind of ugly to have to modify your code to do this just for testing. If you want to avoid this, you can do tricks with reflection to call the private method:
public class Sandbox {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
Example e = new Example();
Method m = Example.class.getDeclaredMethod("myFunction", List.class);
m.setAccessible(true);
m.invoke(e, Arrays.asList("one", "two", "three"));
}
}
class Example {
private void myFunction(List<String> data) {
System.out.println("Hey, what are you doing! " + data);
}
}
In general, you should always test the functionality through public methods. If there is some functionality in private methods, which cannot otherwise be tested well enough, that's an indication that the method has a responsibility which should be moved to its own class (this also helps to achieve high cohesion). Then that newly extracted class can be tested directly though its public methods.
Another vote for package-local. Just ensure that your newly exposed method is clearly named and documented so that in future it is not called inappropriately.
It depends.
Dose the sub routine contains common behavior that you should extract ?
Take your first sub routine as example. If you're not sorting your list by Comparator<T>, you should refactor it, then test that Comprartor<T> class instead of your private method. If Post process are actually some algorithm or common business logic, you might want to refactor it using Strategy pattern then test those class you just extract.
The point is, if a private method is complex enough to require a unit-test, then chance is probably you should not put them there, otherwise you should just test through it's public API.
It's a legacy system, and it will take forever to refactor that method.
check Bad Smells in Code : Long method for long method refactor, Method Object is a good strategy for things like this.
It's fine, I just want to test them.
Then you can test through Java reflection API, and I believe there are some mocking framework like PowerMock can also help you.
Below things you may consider for testing a private method.
1.create public method written only for the purpose of testing. (or)
2.create nested class for testing (or)
3.use reflection to test it.
useful link,another useful link from stackoverflow
I typically consider private methods to be part of the method under test. They typically consist of code that has been moved out of the original method to make it leaner and shorter, and more modular. However from a test perspective you would be testing the same code if you moved the content of the private method into your method under test.
The question of trying to isolate the return values of private methods to simulate various conditions is is often valid though. I think its' part of the larger question of how to write testable code.
One approach with very little overhead is to rely on basic overriding of methods. You can make your private methods protected virtual instead, and override them in your test:
Here's an example of that too :
http://www.unit-testing.net/CurrentArticle/How-To-Remove-Data-Dependencies-In-Unit-Tests.html
The example is C#, but the concept applies to all object oriented languages

Using a function in two unrelated Java classes

I have two classes in my Java project that are not 'related' to each other (one inherits from Thread, and one is a custom object. However, they both need to use the same function, which takes two String arguments and does soem file writing stuff. Where do I best put this function? Code duplication is ugly, but I also wouldn't want to create a whole new class just for this one function.
I have the feeling I am missing a very obvious way to do this here, but I can't think of an easy way.
[a function], which takes two String arguments and does soem file writing stuff
As others have suggested, you can place that function in a separate class, which both your existing classes could then access. Others have suggested calling the class Utility or something similar. I recommend not naming the class in that manner. My objections are twofold.
One would expect that all the code in your program was useful. That is, it had utility, so such a name conveys no information about the class.
It might be argued that Utility is a suitable name because the class is utilized by others. But in that case the name describes how the class is used, not what it does. Classes should be named by what they do, rather than how they are used, because how they are used can change without what they do changing. Consider that Java has a string class, which can be used to hold a name, a description or a text fragment. The class does things with a "string of characters"; it might or might not be used for a name, so string was a good name for it, but name was not.
So I'd suggest a different name for that class. Something that describes the kind of manipulation it does to the file, or describes the format of the file.
Create a Utility class and put all common utility methods in it.
Sounds like an ideal candidate for a FileUtils class that only has static functions. Take a look at SwingUtilities to see what I'm talking about.
You could make the function static in just one of the classes and then reference the static method in the other, assuming there aren't variables being used that require the object to have been instantiated already.
Alternatively, create another class to store all your static methods like that.
To answer the first part of your question - To the best of my knowledge it is impossible to have a function standalone in java; ergo - the function must go into a class.
The second part is more fun - A utility class is a good idea. A better idea may be to expand on what KitsuneYMG wrote; Let your class take responsibility for it's own reading/writing. Then delegate the read/write operation to the utility class. This allows your read/write to be manipulated independently of the rest of the file operations.
Just my 2c (+:

Java static reflection on subclasses

I am implementing a sort of ORM in Java. I am trying to do a static find method that is only in the parent class. Let me get to the point:
public class DB {
public static Object find (int id) {
// i want to return anew instance of the calling subclass
}
}
public class Item extends DB {
// nothing here
}
public class Test {
public static void main () {
Item i = (Item) Item.find(2);
...
}
}
I don't know how to have the find method know which of its inherited class is calling it, so that i can return the right instance (and maybe call the right constructor, etc.) And the inherited class could be anything, no limit.
I've tried stacktrace, but it's only traced from Test to DB.
Any ideas?
Thank you everyone!
Static methods are not inherited, so you can't do this. A common approach to this problem (not including using one of tons of available ORM solutions) is to split your class hierarchy into two:
"Entity" (e.g. classes representing your actual data)
and "DAO" (Data Access Object) - classes that contain methods to manipulate data persistence.
A word to the wise: It's probably a bad idea to try and implement your own ORM. Projects like hibernate have covered this task in great detail, so if you roll your own you are likely to reinvent the wheel and possibly attempt to solve problems that have already been solved.
More on topic, ChssPly76 is correct in that you cannot accomplish this because of how static methods are handled in Java. When the VM loads the bytecode for the static method invocation, it will perform a lookup to find where the method actually is located. It won't find it on the Item class, so it will instead bind the call to DB.find.
However! It may be possible to achieve what you are trying to do with some bytecode wrangling. Viewing the bytecode (using javap -c) for the static method call in your example, we get the following:
invokestatic Method Item.find:(I)Ljava/lang/Object
Thus, once your call reaches DB.find, you could follow the stacktrace back to the callsite, and then inspect the bytecode at the callsite to retrive the actual target of the call. In theory, anyway, as I haven't seen this myself in practice. Also, beware of hacking bytecode like this, for here be dragons.
Kudos for identifying the active record pattern, and wanting to use it in Java. I do agree it's a design pattern that makes more sense than most DB access patterns found in Java, and it's one of the strengths of Ruby and PHP.
I think you may find the "Generic DAO" article at IBM developerworks useful.
Short: use Generics wisely.

Java mechanisms at use in lambdaj closures

Lamdbaj allows the definition of closures in the Java language, various examples can be found
here
My question is regarding the underlying Java mechanisms at use, for instance, to define the println closure, the following code is used:
Closure println = closure();
{ of(System.out).println(var(String.class)); }
This closure can be subsequently executed via:
println.apply("foobar");
I am curious as to what mechanisms in Java would allow the call to of(...).println(...) to become associated with the println instance itself.
Naturally, the lambdaj source code is available to read but I was hoping for a slightly higher level explanation if anyone has one. My reflection skills go as far as a bit of introspection and executing methods dynamically.
I am Mario Fusco and I am the main developer of the lambdaj library.
First of all I would like to clarify something: lambdaj is not intended to replace any functional language. As I said last week in my speech at the Jug of Zurich if you have a chance to use Scala, go for it and never look back. Here you can find a resume of my speech where it is clearly stated that:
http://ctpjava.blogspot.com/2009/10/lambdaj-new-trends-in-java.html
I am an happy Scala developer too. But sometimes you are just obliged to develop in Java (in my experience, in the real world, about the 80% of times you cannot choose in which language you have to write your code) and in this case some of the lambdaj features could be helpful (or I hope so). I just wanted to bring to Java some functional features that are totally missing. Of course the result is not completely satisfying mainly due to the limitation imposed by Java itself.
As for the internal lambdaj mechanism, yes it uses a ThreadLocal in order to achieve that result. If you have other questions, curiosities or even better suggestions and constructive critics about lambdaj maybe you could be interested to register yourself to the lambdaj mailing list here:
http://groups.google.com/group/lambdaj
Bye
Mario
Well, of is presumably a static method which is imported statically so it can be called without the enclosing class name. I expect that var is the same. Both methods must return some type which have the methods subsequently called:
public class Printable {
public void println(Var var);
}
public class Fac {
public static Printable of(Object o) {
return new Printable(o);
}
public static Var var(Class<?> clazz) {
return new Var(clazz);
}
}
All of a sudden:
Fac.of(System.out).println(Fac.var(String.class));
Is valid Java. Using static imports, hey presto:
import static Fac.*;
of(System.out).println(var(String.class));
The curly-braces are obviously valid Java as you can add these in any method to aid in defining a lexical sope. This API-design style is called fluent and is best showcased by the JMock testing library.
By the way, if this is supposed to introduce closures to Java, it's quite ridiculous - the syntax is unreadably awful. Their I/O example actually made me laugh out loud. Try Scala!
EDIT - the two println calls are associated I believe because the first sequence of calls allow the library to capture the variables which you have passed in as parameters. These are probably captured in some ThreadLocal structure. When you then call a (also presumably static) println method, the library is using this captured data to actually execute the behaviour at a later point. Also testing related, the EasyMock test framework uses a similar mechanism (which uses Java proxies in the background) to capture expected values.

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