An extraction tool determines redundant program constructs using static analysis, and eliminates these constructs in order to reduce application size. Library-based object-oriented applications typically use only part of the functionality of the class libraries they rely on, and are therefore likely to be excellent candidates for extraction. Thus far, extraction tools have targeted complete applications, and relied on adhoc solutions to accommodate "dynamic" language features such as reflection and dynamic loading. We present a general approach for extracting applications ranging from complete programs to extendible class libraries, in which the user supplies additional information about these features using a modular specification language. We implemented our approach in the context of Jax, an industrial-strength extractor for Java that has been applied to several commercial applications.
By: Peter F. Sweeney, Frank Tip
Published in: RC21596 in 1999
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