FJsc: (Extended) Featherweight Java smart compiler

FJsc is a prototype implementation for smartest (re)compilation of a superset of Featherweight Java
based on the type system defined in AnconaZucca04 and the technique developed in AnconaLagorio04.

The first time a source file is compiled,  FJsc generates a .tc file containing a minimal
set of type constraints needed for generating the corresponding .class file.
By inspecting .tc files, FJsc is able to trigger recompilation of only those  source files whose recompilation
would lead to a different .class file (note that this might happen for unmodified source files, since
the generated bytecode also depends on the other classes available in the context), thus avoiding useless recompilations.

Requirements

JDK 1.4 or higher is needed.
Script for generating .class file via JDK javac is provided only for UNIX/LINUX.

Download

FJsc.tgz

Installation

The following instructions are valid only for UNIX/LINUX users:

• Move FJsc.tgz where you prefer and uncompress it (tar xzvf FJsc.tgz)
• Edit files FJsc/fjsc and FJsc/rebuild in order to update the definition of INST_DIR variable with the correct path to the directory FJsc  
• If you like, update PATH for being able to run the scripts without specifying the path
• In case your JDK version is less than 1.4 and you do not want to upgrade it, run script rebuild


If you do not have UNIX/LINUX you will not be able to run the scripts, however if your JDK
version is >= 1.4 you will still be able to run the application (see below)

Usage

• Move to the directory where the Java files you want to compile reside
• For UNIX/LINUX users: run fjsc
  
• For other users: run java -classpath $INST_DIR/FJsc/jar -jar $INST_DIR/FJsc/jar/FJsc.jar where $INST_DIR is replaced with the correct path to the directory FJsc
• Verbose option (-v at the end of the command): shows all type constraints for all classes whose .class and .tc files exist and are up-to-date
  

NOTE: the script fjsc allows generation of the .class files via the JDK compiler,
      since the application only performs typechecking and generates the corresponding type constraints.
      If you cannot run fjsc, you will need to invoke the JDK compiler "by hand"
      since recompilation of a file is triggered whenever the corresponding .class file is missing      

Conventions on files

• Each file must contain just one class declaration
• The name of the file must coincide with the class name declared in it (except for .java extension)
• All files must reside in the same directory
  

Language specification

The language is a proper super-set of Featherweight Java. Please
refer to the papers by Igarashi, Pierce and Wadler for the specification of Featherweight Java.

Here below are listed all implemented extensions:

• Fields can be hidden by subclasses.
• Constructors can be overloaded. The syntax for constructor bodies is a possibly empty sequence of assignments of the form:  this.id=exp;
• Each constructor body begins with the implicit call super(),  however the super explicit notation for constructors is not supported
• The rules for default constructors are the same as in Java
• Methods can be overloaded
• Primitive type int and integer literals are supported
  

References

Davide Ancona and Elena Zucca. Principal typings for Java-like Languages. In POPL 2004 - The 31st ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, pages 306-317, ACM press, 2004.

Davide Ancona and Giovanni Lagorio. Stronger typings for separate compilation of Java-like languages. Journal of Object Technology, 3(6), 2004.

Atsushi Igarashi, Benjamin Pierce, and Philip Wadler. Featherweight Java: A minimal core calculus for Java and GJ. In ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object Oriented Programming: Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA), October 1999. Full version in ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), 23(3), May 2001.