Availability and Usage of Platform-Specific APIs: A First Empirical Study (MSR 2024)
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This document presents a study on the availability and usage of platform-specific APIs in Python, revealing that 21% of APIs are platform-specific and 15% of modules include at least one such API. The study also indicates extensive usage of these APIs across 100 software systems with over 19,000 instances noted. Findings highlight the widespread nature of platform-specific APIs in Python but also emphasize the lack of dedicated documentation and best practices.
Availability and Usage of Platform-Specific APIs: A First Empirical Study (MSR 2024)
- 1. Availability and Usage of Platform-Specific APIs: A First Empirical Study Ricardo Job and André Hora
- 2. Software Runs on Multiple Platforms 2 Diversity of Development Environments https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2023/development/#os_devenv
- 3. Platform-Specific API API that is implemented for a particular platform, therefore, it may not work on other platforms than the target one. 3
- 4. signal.setitimer if sys.platform != "win32": # Clear the alarm signal set by # ioloop.set_blocking_log_threshold so it doesn't fire # after the exec. signal.setitimer(signal.ITIMER_REAL, 0, 0) 4 https://github.com/tornadoweb/tornado/blob/f5df43f26bb4d00759176f7cbec8bdce69f2f4f/tornado/autoreload.py#L206-L210
- 5. Platform-Specific APIs The Python Standard Library Documentation (version 3.11) 5 https://docs.python.org/3.11/library/
- 6. Platform-Specific APIs 6 RQ1: What is the availability of platform-specific APIs? RQ2: What is the usage of platform-specific APIs?
- 7. RQ1: Availability of Platform-Specific APIs Study Design 7 availability notes 8,795 APIs 1,841 Platform-Specific APIs version 3.11
- 8. RQ1: Availability of Platform-Specific APIs Major Findings 8 21% of the APIs are platform-specific. 15% of the modules contain at least one platform-specific API. 17 different platforms with availability restrictions.
- 9. RQ2: Usage of Platform-Specific APIs Study Design 9 AST-based analysis 1,841 Platform-Specific APIs 100 Software Systems 19,288 Usage instances 683 Distinct Platform-Specific APIs
- 10. RQ2: Usage of Platform-Specific APIs Major Findings 10 Platform-specific APIs are largely used in Python. 19K usages of platform-specific APIs in all 100 projects. Top-3: asyncio.sleep, subprocess.Popen, and subprocess.PIPE.
- 11. Implications Practitioners and Researchers • Platform-specific APIs are widespread in the Python Standard Library but there is a lack of dedicated documentation. • Platform-specific APIs are largely used by Python systems but there is an absence of best practices and anti-patterns. 11
- 12. Availability and Usage of Platform-Specific APIs: A First Empirical Study ricardo.job@ifpb.edu.br