Runtime Verification of Hash Code in Mutable Classes

Abstract

Most mainstream object-oriented languages provide a notion of equality between objects which can be customized to be weaker than reference equality, and which is coupled with the customizable notion of object hash code. This feature is so pervasive in object-oriented code that incorrect redefinition or use of equality and hash code may have a serious impact on software reliability and safety. Despite redefinition of equality and hash code in mutable classes is unsafe, many widely used API libraries do that in Java and other similar languages. When objects of such classes are used as keys in hash tables, programs may exhibit unexpected and unpredictable behavior. In this paper we propose a runtime verification solution to avoid or at least mitigate this issue. Our proposal uses RML, a rewriting-based domain specific language for runtime verification which is independent from code instrumentation and the programming language used to develop the software to be verified.