Comprehensive Multiplatform Dynamic Program Analysis for Java and Android

Dynamic program analyses, such as profiling, tracing and bug-finding

tools, are essential for software engineering. Unfortunately, implementing

dynamic analyses for managed languages such as Java is unduly difficult

and error-prone, because the run-time environments provide only complex

low-level mechanisms. Currently, programmers writing custom tooling

must expend great effort in tool development and maintenance, while

still suffering substantial limitations such as incomplete code coverage

or lack of portability. Ideally, a framework would be available in which

dynamic analysis tools could be expressed at a high level, robustly, with

high coverage and supporting alternative run-times such as Android. We

describe our research on an \all-in-one" dynamic program analysis frame-

work which uses a combination of techniques to satisfy these requirements.