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I want to find references to a given variable or callers of a given method, just like the "open call hierarchy" and "(find) references" features in Eclipse (when you right-click a variable or a method.)

Now I've obtained the Abstract Syntax Tree of the source code. I used Eclipse JDT to get the AST, which also resolves all type bindings.

So my question is, is it possible to find variable/method references using only this Abstract Syntax Tree? (I know that some code-analysis libraries use bytecode to achieve this. I wonder whether similar analyses can be performed using AST.)

Ida
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1 Answers1

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using only this Abstract Syntax Tree?

You cannot easily determine references or callers, given just the AST. The AST is just syntax, and does not directly encode what it means (with a subset of the meaning being, "this is referenced to called").

To determine what is referenced or called, the AST must be analyzed in pretty complicated ways, to build up symbol scopes and determine what touches what. (Much of the Java standard/book is about this process, but the information is scattered all over the book because of its complexity).

A good front end will generally compute this information, or something that allows easy extraction, from the AST. I believe Eclipse JDT has this information and offers a set of APIs to access it, but I know nothing else about JDT.

But you can't get it easily from just the AST.

Ira Baxter
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