[Checkers] Augmenting Parser

[Michael Ernst]

Benny-

> as regular contributor to JDT I have a great interest to have a better 
> integration of the JSR 308 in the JDT compiler. I'd like to take a look 
> at some of the "bigger" problems next week to see in which direction 
> such a JDT/Core fork would go.

That sounds great.  Let's move forward on that.

> I just had a quick glance at the current Eclipse plugin. As far as I can 
> see (without the source) is that you only add actions to the java 
> projects to internally call the real compiler. So seems there is not 
> much magic involved in the current approach.

That's correct.  It calls the real compiler and parses the error messages.
This isn't very satisfactory -- for example, no error highlighting,
refactoring support, etc.

> I wondered if there is any repository with the source files of your 
> current implementation.

I didn't realize those aren't publicly available.  I have put a tar file at

http://people.csail.mit.edu/mernst/tmp/checkersPlugin.tgz

and we'll make the source available on the web too.

> Do you have any ideas in which form we should promote such a JDT/Core fork?
> Involving the JDT guys in this would help us to find any touchpoints.

Yes.  I know they are interested, but I'm not sure how much time they have
right now.  Igor Peshansky <igorp at us.ibm.com> is also interested.

I suspect that if you get something started, they will all find they have
enough time to make suggestions, even if they didn't have enough time to be
the lead.

> Doesn't ex-JDT committer Adam Kiezun work with you?

Yes, and he wrote the current plugin.  He knows a lot about refactoring in
Eclipse, but he isn't comfortable with the compiler itself.

Feel free to also copy checkers at lists.csail.mit.edu (our internal developer
mailing list), and also to ask if you have any questions.  I look forward
to working with you.

                    -Mike