Multilingual Software Analysis(MLSA)

Multilingual Software Analysis(MLSA) or Melissa is a lightweight tool set developed for the analysis of large software systems which are multilingual in nature. Large software systems are often written in more than one programming language, for example, some parts in C++, some in Python etc. Typically, software engineering tools work on monolingual programs, programs written in single language, but since in practice many software systems or code bases are written in more than one language, this can be less than ideal.

Melissa produces tools to analyze programs written in more than one language and generate for example, dependency graphs and call graphs across multiple languages, overcoming the limitation of software tools that only work on monolingual software system or programs. For example, when Melissa tools are applied to a C++ program which calls a python program, this produces a single call graph that contains the procedure calls for C++ procedures and python procedures. Currently, Melissa has support for C++, Python and JavaScript based programs. This lightweight and modular tool is open source.

We would like to encourage Software Engineers and Developers to use Melissa and let us know whether you find it valuable. It will help us design improvements as well as directing us in further developments. We would also like to motivate Software Engineers and Developers to become involved in the development of more and better Melissa tools for example, to cover more languages and inter language APIs.

You can download Melissa from Github. You can also get further information about Melissa at Twiki and Youtube. The Melissa Research Group can be contacted at multilingualsa@gmail.com. Thank you