Composing transformations of compiled Java programs with Jabyce

This article introduces Jabyce, a software framework for the implementation and composition of transformations of compiled Java programs. Most distinguishing features of Jabyce are 1) its interaction orientation, i.e. it represents elements of transformed programs as interactions (method calls) which generally consumes less memory and CPU time than representing programs as graphs of objects; and 2) its component orientation, i.e. it allows for the design and composition of transformers as software components based on the Fractal component model. This latter point is strongly connected to infra-structural and architectural issues, and software engineering aspects such as composing, scaling, maintaining and evolving transformers. Jabyce is compared with other existing compiled Java programs transformation systems using an extension of a previous well-known categorization of program transformation systems.