Improving software reliability and productivity via mining program source code

A software system interacts with third-party libraries through various APIs. Insufficient documentation and constant refactorings of third-party libraries make API library reuse difficult and error prone. Using these library APIs often needs to follow certain usage patterns. These patterns aid developers in addressing commonly faced programming problems such as what checks should precede or follow API calls, how to use a given set of APIs for a given task, or what API method sequence should be used to obtain one object from another. Ordering rules (specifications) also exist between APIs, and these rules govern the secure and robust operation of the system using these APIs. These patterns and rules may not be well documented by the API developers. Furthermore, usage patterns and specifications might change with library refactorings, requiring changes in the software that reuse the library. To address these issues, we develop novel techniques (and their supporting tools) based on mining source code, assisting developers in productively reusing third party libraries to build reliable and secure software.