Static checking java with the Java Static Checker

This paper introduces a new open source static analysis tool, the Java Static Checker (JSC). Traditional static analysis tools examine Java code for fault instances considering specific code patterns. JSC is novel in that it examines Java code for potential fault classes based on propagating values and examining fault classes. In this paper, we use the tool to examine programs for potential null pointer dereferences. We empirically evaluate JSC and two other open source tools, Jlint and FindBugs, on a multiple programs. The results show that JSC finds more null pointer dereferences than the other tools.