Java bytecode verification for @NonNull types

Male, Chris; Pearce, David J.; Potanin, Alex; Dymnikov, Constantine

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Java bytecode verification for @NonNull types

Date

2008

Authors

Male, Chris

Pearce, David J.

Potanin, Alex

Dymnikov, Constantine

Abstract

Java's annotation mechanism allows us to extend its type system with non-null types. However, checking such types cannot be done using the existing bytecode verification algorithm. We extend this algorithm to verify non-null types using a novel technique that identifies aliasing relationships between local variables and stack locations in the JVM. We formalise this for a subset of Java Bytecode and report on experiences using our implementation.