InvokeDynamic support in Soot

Abstract

Java Specification Request (JSR) 292, which was realized with Java 7, defines a new java bytecode called invokedynamic, which can be used to call methods by name, without determining statically where the implementation of the called method is to be found. This mechanism eases the implementation of highly dynamic languages for the Java Virtual Machine. In this work we explain how we extended the Soot framework for static analysis and transformation of Java programs to properly handle invokedynamic bytecodes. Our implementation required changes on all levels of Soot, as all intermediate representations needed to be adapted appropriately. We comment on the design decisions taken and how users can use our implementation to statically process or generate invokedynamic instructions. Our support has been integrated into Soot release 2.5.0 and is thus already available for everyone to use.