Study and Refactoring of Android Asynchronous Programming

Lin, Yu; Okur, Semih; Dig, Danny

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/77719 Copy

Description

Title

Study and Refactoring of Android Asynchronous Programming

Author(s)

• Lin, Yu
• Okur, Semih
• Dig, Danny

Issue Date

2015-05-17

Keyword(s)

• Asynchronous Programming
• refactoring
• Android

Abstract

To avoid unresponsiveness, a core part of mobile development is asynchronous programming. Android provides several async constructs that developers can use. However, developers can still use the inappropriate async constructs, which result in memory leaks, lost results, and wasted energy. Fortunately, refactoring tools can eliminate these problems by transforming async code to use the appropriate constructs. In this paper we conducted a formative study on a corpus of 611 widely-used Android apps to map the asynchronous landscape of Android apps, understand how developers retrofit asynchrony, and learn about barriers encountered by developers. Based on this study, we designed, implemented, and evaluated ASYNCDROID, a refactoring tool which enables Android developers to transform existing improperly-used async constructs into correct constructs. Our empirical evaluation shows that ASYNCDROID is applicable, accurate, and saves developers effort. We submitted 30 refactoring patches, and developers consider that the refactorings are useful.

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/77719

Copyright and License Information

• NSF CCF-1439957
• NSF CCF-1442157
• SEIF award from Microsoft
• gift grant from Intel

Owning Collections