research-article

CiD: automating the detection of API-related compatibility issues in Android apps

Authors:

Tegawendé F. Bissyandé,

Jacques KleinAuthors Info & Claims

ISSTA 2018: Proceedings of the 27th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

Pages 153 - 163

https://doi.org/10.1145/3213846.3213857

Published: 12 July 2018 Publication History

Abstract

The Android Application Programming Interface provides the necessary building blocks for app developers to harness the functionalities of the Android devices, including for interacting with services and accessing hardware. This API thus evolves rapidly to meet new requirements for security, performance and advanced features, creating a race for developers to update apps. Unfortunately, given the extent of the API and the lack of automated alerts on important changes, Android apps are suffered from API-related compatibility issues. These issues can manifest themselves as runtime crashes creating a poor user experience. We propose in this paper an automated approach named CiD for systematically modelling the lifecycle of the Android APIs and analysing app bytecode to flag usages that can lead to potential compatibility issues. We demonstrate the usefulness of CiD by helping developers repair their apps, and we validate that our tool outperforms the state-of-the-art on benchmark apps that take into account several challenges for automatic detection.

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Cited By

Mobilio MRiganelli OMicucci DMariani L(2024)FILO: Automated FIx-LOcus Identification for Android Framework Compatibility IssuesInformation10.3390/info1508042315:8(423)Online publication date: 23-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/info15080423
Waseem MDas TAhmad ALiang PMikkonen T(2024)Issues and Their Causes in WebAssembly Applications: An Empirical StudyProceedings of the 28th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/3661167.3661227(170-180)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3661167.3661227
Mahmud TChe MRouijel JKhan MYang GRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey M(2024)APICIA: An API Change Impact Analyzer for Android AppsProceedings of the 2024 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings10.1145/3639478.3640041(99-103)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639478.3640041
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Index Terms

CiD: automating the detection of API-related compatibility issues in Android apps
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ISSTA 2018: Proceedings of the 27th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

July 2018

379 pages

ISBN:9781450356992

DOI:10.1145/3213846

General Chair:
Frank Tip
Northeastern University, USA
,
Program Chair:
Eric Bodden
University of Paderborn, Germany / Fraunhofer IEM, Germany

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

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Published: 12 July 2018

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July 16 - 21, 2018

Amsterdam, Netherlands

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Overall Acceptance Rate 58 of 213 submissions, 27%

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Cited By

Mobilio MRiganelli OMicucci DMariani L(2024)FILO: Automated FIx-LOcus Identification for Android Framework Compatibility IssuesInformation10.3390/info1508042315:8(423)Online publication date: 23-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/info15080423
Waseem MDas TAhmad ALiang PMikkonen T(2024)Issues and Their Causes in WebAssembly Applications: An Empirical StudyProceedings of the 28th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/3661167.3661227(170-180)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3661167.3661227
Mahmud TChe MRouijel JKhan MYang GRoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey M(2024)APICIA: An API Change Impact Analyzer for Android AppsProceedings of the 2024 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings10.1145/3639478.3640041(99-103)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639478.3640041
Lercher ARoychoudhury APaiva AAbreu RStorey M(2024)Managing API Evolution in Microservice ArchitectureProceedings of the 2024 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings10.1145/3639478.3639800(195-197)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
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Li SLi RYu YYan KYang SDiao W(2024)Understanding Android OS Forward Compatibility Support for Legacy Apps: A Data-Driven Analysis2024 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER)10.1109/SANER60148.2024.00029(216-226)Online publication date: 12-Mar-2024
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