Lessons Learned from Implementing a Language-Agnostic Dependency Graph Parser

Francesco Refolli, Darius Sas, Francesca Arcelli Fontana

2025

Abstract

In software engineering, automated tools are essential for detecting policy violations within code. These tools typically analyze the relationships and dependencies between components in large codebases, which may be written in various programming languages. Most available tools, whether free or proprietary, rely on third-party software to perform statistical analyses. This approach often requires a separate tool for each programming language, which can lead to high maintenance efforts, and even relying on a standardized technology such as Language Servers has several drawbacks. This paper investigates the feasibility of removing language-specific dependencies in the construction of dependency graphs by using two libraries: Tree Sitter and Stack Graph. After analyzing the capabilities of these technologies, their application in this context is demonstrated, and the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed solution are evaluated.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Refolli F., Sas D. and Fontana F. (2025). Lessons Learned from Implementing a Language-Agnostic Dependency Graph Parser. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE; ISBN 978-989-758-742-9, SciTePress, pages 484-491. DOI: 10.5220/0013277600003928

in Bibtex Style

@conference{enase25,
author={Francesco Refolli and Darius Sas and Francesca Fontana},
title={Lessons Learned from Implementing a Language-Agnostic Dependency Graph Parser},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE},
year={2025},
pages={484-491},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013277600003928},
isbn={978-989-758-742-9},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE
TI - Lessons Learned from Implementing a Language-Agnostic Dependency Graph Parser
SN - 978-989-758-742-9
AU - Refolli F.
AU - Sas D.
AU - Fontana F.
PY - 2025
SP - 484
EP - 491
DO - 10.5220/0013277600003928
PB - SciTePress