In order to use the dataflow type system, you first need to set up the following four projects:

• https://bitbucket.org/typetools/jsr308-langtools
• https://github.com/typetools/annotation-tools
• https://github.com/typetools/checker-framework
• https://github.com/typetools/checker-framework-inference

You'll need environment variables CHECKERFRAMEWORK, JSR308, JAVA_HOME, and AFU set up appropriately. The insert-annotations-to-source script from AFU must be on your path.

The tool do-like-javac makes usage easier:

• https://github.com/SRI-CSL/pascali-public.git

I created a shortcut for this tool:

alias do-like-javac='python /the/path/to/do-like-javac/bin/do-like-javac.py'

The tool graphviz could visualize the dot files that are generated by checker-framework.

• http://www.graphviz.org

1. Clone this repository into the $JSR308 directory.

cd $JSR308
git clone https://github.com/Jianchu/generic-type-inference-solver.git

2. In the $JSR308 directory, run bash generic-type-inference-solver/integrationSetup.sh. This bash script will set everything up, recompile checker-framework-inference, and put the DataflowExample directory into the $JSR308 directory.

bash generic-type-inference-solver/integrationSetup.sh

3. Now you can use checker-framework-inference to invoke the Dataflow Checker and Dataflow Solver like this:

$JSR308/checker-framework-inference/scripts/inference
  --checker dataflow.DataflowChecker
  --solver dataflow.solver.DataflowSolver --mode INFER [List of files]

After the second step of Building, a dataflowexample directory will be placed under $JSR308. This is a sample project that is annotated with @Dataflow annotations, and you can play around with it: type check, type infer, insert the inferred annotations to source code, visualize the control flow graph, etc.

Here are some instructions that shows how to do these tasks with do-like-javac:

1. Change into the dataflowexample directory:

cd $JSR308/dataflowexample

2. Invoke the inference tool using do-like-javac. The ROUNDTRIP mode will generate and solve the constraints and then inserts the results back into the original source code. If the whole process runs successfully, the inserted output will be placed in annotated directory.

do-like-javac -t inference --checker dataflow.DataflowChecker
  --solver dataflow.solver.DataflowSolver -o logs 
  -m ROUNDTRIP -afud annotated -- ant compile-project

3. Invoke the checker tool with do-like-javac. This step will type check the newly created source code, and generate .dot files (in the dotfiles directory) that visualize the control flow graph.

do-like-javac -t checker --checker "dataflow.DataflowChecker -Aflowdotdir=./dotfiles" -o logs -- ant check-annotated-src

Note the quotes around the --checker argument to ensure the whole string is used.

4. Visualize the dot files by tool graphviz. This step will generate a pdf file that contains the control flow graph.

dot -Tpdf dotfiles/_init_Dataflow.dot -o CFG.pdf

If you compare the original source code with the source code generated by the third step, you can find the string field thisIsString and thisShouldbeString are annotated with @DataFlow(typeNames={"java.lang.String"}) in the new source code, although the declared type of thisShouldbeString is Object.