Boxing a primitive using the constructor ("new Integer(4)") always
creates a distinct new boxed instance. That's rarely what you need,
and in fact all of those constructors have been deprecated in Java 9.
Using the static "valueOf" method instead ("Integer.valueOf(4)") can
give better performance by reusing existing instances. You no longer
get a unique boxed object, but generally that's OK.
Each of these required careful consideration of what the original
developer *intended* as distinguished from what the developer's code
actually *does*. I believe I got each one right, and WALA's
regression tests agree. A second opinion by a core WALA developer
would be welcome, though.
In general, my approach was to try to eliminate each unused parameter
using Eclipse's "Change Method Signature" refactoring. That did not
always succeed: a parameter may be unused in some base class method,
but then be used in subclass's override of that method. In cases
where refactoring to eliminate a parameter failed, I instead annotated
the parameter with '@SuppressWarnings("unused")' to silence the
warning.
Note: this group of changes creates a significant risk of
incompatibility for third-party WALA code. Some removed parameters
change externally-visible APIs. Furthermore, these changes do not
necessarily lead to Java compilation errors. For example, suppose
third-party code subclasses a WALA class or interface, overrides a
method, but does not annotate that method as @Override. Removing a
parameter means that the third-party method no longer overrides. This
can quietly change code behavior without compile-time errors or
warnings. This is exactly why one should use @Override wherever
possible, but we cannot guarantee that third-party WALA users have
done that.
I have *not* upgraded this problem to be treated as an error in the
future. Unfortunately Eclipse uses a single configuration setting for
both unnecessary semicolons and also for empty control-flow statements
like `while (p) ;`. I'm not convinced that it's worth rewriting all
instances of the latter into `while (p) { }`. So this is just going
to stay as a warning for now.
Along the way, I also converted many "for (;;)" loops into modern
"for (:)" loops. I didn't systematically look for all opportunities
to do this, though. I merely made this change where I was already
converting raw Iterator uses into modern Iterator<...> uses.
Better use of generics also allowed many casts to become statically
redundant. I have removed all such redundant casts.
Only three raw-types warnings remain after this batch of fixes. All
three involve raw uses of CallGraphBuilder. I've tried to fix these
too, but it quickly snowballs into a cascade of changes that may or
may not eventually reach a statically-type-save fixed point. I may
give these last few problem areas another go in the future. For now,
though, the hundreds of other fixes seem worth keeping even if there
are a few stragglers.
This commit may change some public APIs, but only by making weaker
type signatures stronger by replacing raw types with generic types.
For example, we may change something like "Set" into "Set<String>",
but we're not adding new arguments, changing any
underlying (post-generics-erasure) types, etc.
Instead, rely on Java's ability to infer type parameters in many
contexts. This removes 665 Eclipse warnings.
Note: a few of these changes are to files under "test" subdirectories.
Presumably those are files that serve as test inputs rather than being
part of WALA code proper. As far as I can tell, these changes do not
break any WALA tests. But if any of those tests were specifically
intended to exercise WALA on code with non-inferred generic type
parameters, then I really should be leaving those alone.
Sifis Lagouvardos
Julian Dolby
Ben Liblit
Manu Sridharan
Julian Dolby
Manu Sridharan
Juergen Graf
Manu Sridharan