Static analysis of object references in RMI-based Java software

Distributed applications provide numerous advantages related to software performance, reliability, interoperabil-ity, and extensibility. This paper focuses on distributed Java programs built with the help of the Remote Method Invoca-tion (RMI) mechanism. We consider points-to analysis for such applications. Points-to analysis determines the objects pointed to by a reference variable or a reference object field. Such information plays a fundamental role as a prerequisite for many other static analyses. We present the first theoret-ical definition of points-to analysis for RMI-based Java ap-plications, and an algorithm for implementing a flow- and context-insensitive points-to analysis for such applications. We also discuss the use of points-to information for comput-ing call graph information, for understanding data depen-dencies due to remote memory locations, and for identifying opportunities for improving the performance of object seri-alization at remote calls. The work described in this paper solves one key problem for static analysis of RMI programs, and provides a starting point for future work on improving the understanding, testing, verification, and performance of RMI-based software.