Abstract-Attribute-oriented programming (source code annotations) is a program level marking technique that enables enrichment of program elements with custom metadata. In this paper we hypothesize that there is a correspondence between source code annotations and conventional formal languages in general. We analyze our observations about source code annotations from three aspects of language description: concrete syntax, abstract syntax, and semantics. The discussion provides evidence of the hypothesized correspondence and we use it as a basis for our definition of an annotation-based language (abbreviated: @L). However, the analysis also shows that compared to conventional formal languages, source code annotations have some specificities mainly connected to their binding to host program elements. The presented analysis contributes to the field of attributeoriented programming by discussing the relationship between annotations and conventional formal languages, and by surveying relational idioms in annotations' usage that can be inspirational for annotations' authors.

No abstract

When a person decides to inspect or modify a third-party software project, the first necessary step is its successful compilation from source code using a build system. However, such attempts often end in failure. In this data descriptor paper, we provide a dataset of build results of open source Java software systems. We tried to automatically build a large number of Java projects from GitHub using their Maven, Gradle, and Ant build scripts in a Docker container simulating a standard programmer’s environment. The dataset consists of the output of two executions: 7264 build logs from a study executed in 2016 and 7233 logs from the 2020 execution. In addition to the logs, we collected exit codes, file counts, and various project metadata. The proportion of failed builds in our dataset is 38% in the 2016 execution and 59% in the 2020 execution. The published data can be helpful for multiple purposes, such as correlation analysis of factors affecting build success, build failure prediction, and research in the area of build breakage repair.

In this paper we examine source code annotations from the viewpoint of formal languages -we discuss their abstract syntax, concrete syntax, and semantics, thus showing the correspondence between annotations and formal languages. We propose to consider a set of all annotations and their parameters processed by the same reference implementation (they belong to the same domain) to be called an annotation-based language. The performed analysis also pinpoints a specificity of annotations in comparison with formal languages in general -the binding between annotations and a host language. We elaborate this idea with an analysis of annotations' potential for language composition, in particular for pure embedding. We then show how pure embedding with annotations can be used for language unification, language referencing by extension, and language extension. This work provides a basis for further research in the field of source code annotations in the context of formal languages.

Abstract-The term Projectional editor is commonly used for tools that can work directly with the program's abstract syntax tree. They are able to provide different views of the program, according to the specific editor used. The ability to look at the program from multiple views is often requested as a mean to simplify program comprehension. During their evolution, the Integrated Development Environments were equipped with tools that provide such possibilities. Many of them already work with the parsed abstract syntax tree of the code and thus can be considered for projections. In this paper we review projections available in 6 widely used IDEs. The review categorizes existing projections and shows that significant number of IDE tools depend on the knowledge of program structure, but also that data from other integrated tools are used to enhance the projections.