• Quick Links
• 1. Data
• 2. Patterns identification
• 3. Results
• 4. Interesting patterns
• 5. Additional tools
• *Authors

Mining Energy-Greedy API Usage Patterns in Android Apps: an Empirical Study - MSR 2014 Online Appendix

This web page is a companion to our MSR 2014 paper entitled "Mining Energy-Greedy API Usage Patterns in Android Apps: an Empirical Study".

1. Data

Android apps

The list is available here in html version or as a CSV file

Scenarios and Scripts:

The scenarios we defined for testing the apps are here, and the corresponding monkey-player scripts can be downloaded here. For more details about how to used monkey-recorder and monkey-player for Android apps visit this link

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2. Patterns Identification

The format of the files and the way to execute each one of the programs is detailed as in the following. All the files have a header. Also we considered the methods in the execution traces at the first two nesting levels.

Files and formats

• Aligned traces (.call): Each line is for an API call extracted from the execution traces. The call are ordered by entry time and then by thread id. The format is <method qualified name>,<thread id>,<entry time(usecs)>,<exit time(usecs)>,< energy(J)>. A zip file containing the aligned traces for each app execution can be downloaded here
• Patterns: Each line is for a sequence of API calls with a specific size. The format is <APIs sequence>,<# instances of the sequence>,<average (energy consumption)>,<median (energy consumption)>,<max (energy consumption)>,<min (energy consumption)>. A zip file containing sequences with length 1, 2, and 3 can be downloaded here
• Signatures (.sig): Each file represents a class in an application, and each line in a file is the fingerprint (More details on the paper) of each method declared in the class. The file format is <method qualified name>,< method fingerprint> *
• Patterns location (.loc): Each file contains the links from the patterns to the source code. The file format is the following: <pattern>,<app_path_folder>,<class_qualified_name>,<method_name>*

* We do not provide those files because the apps are not open source.

Programs

• PatternsIdentifier.jar: PatternsLocator.jar: A zip containing the jar and the libs can be downloaded here. The command line for executing the program is:

  java -Xmx20G -jar PatternsIdentifier.jar <path_to_aligned_traces_folder> <initial_length> <final_length>

• SignaturesGenerator.jar: It requires a set if libs for generating the AST from methods. A zip containing the jar and the libs can be downloaded here. The command line for executing the program is:

  java -Xmx20G -cp SignaturesGenerator.jar:<path_to_libs_folder>/* edu.wm.cs.semeru.apicex_fprint.Main <path_to_folder_with_apps_source_code> <path_to_libs> <output_folder>

• PatternsLocator.jar: A zip containing the jar and the libs can be downloaded here. The command line for executing the program is:

  java -Xmx20G -jar PatternsLocator.jar <path_to_patterns_folder> <path_to_fingerprints_folder> <output_folder> 1

*We used the -Xmx20G argument to avoid heap-memory exceptions.

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3. Results

• RQ1-Which are the most energy-greedy Android API methods? Individual API calls and categorization according to the grounded theory process: CSV
• RQ2-Which sequences of Android API calls are the most energy-greedy? Patterns with length 2 and 3, and categorization according to the grounded theory process: CSV

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4. Interesting patterns

1. Usage example of the pattern <Activity.setContentView(int); Activity.findViewById(int); View.setVisibility(int)> in a Tools app.

2. Example of Activity.findViewById(int) misuse in a birthday reminder app.

3. Multiple uses of SQLiteDatabase.execSQL(String) in an Education app.

4. Usage example of the pattern <SQLiteOpenHelper.getWritableDatabase(); SQLiteOpenHelper.getReadableDatabase()> in a Productivity app.

5. Usage example of <ConnectivityManager.getNetworkInfo(int); ConnectivityManager.getNetworkInfo(int);NetworkInfo.isConnected()> in a News and Magazines app.

6.Usage example of the pattern <ProgressBar.setProgress(int); ProgressBar.setProgress(int)> in a Casual app.

7. Usage example of the pattern <Toast.makeText(Context,CharSequence,int); Toast.show()> in a web browser.

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5. Additional tools

• Android SDK: contains the Activity Manager Profiler, Android Debugger Bridge, and dmtracedump tools
• Monsoon Power monitor: for measuring energy consumption of battery-based devices. To disable the USB charging in the Nexus 4 during the energy measurement we modified the following file /sys/module/pm8921_charger/parameters/disabled, which is on the Nexus 4 filesystem.
• Apktool: required for modifying manifest files in APK files. We followed the procedure explained here
• Money recorder: for recording and executing test scripts
• Dex2jar: for getting jar files from APK files
• Procyon Java decompiler: for getting source code from JAR files

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*Authors

• Mario Linares-Vásquez - The College of William and Mary, VA, USA.
  E-mail: mlinarev at cs dot wm dot edu
• Gabriele Bavota - University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy.
  Email: gbavota at unisannio dot it
• Carlos Bernal-Cárdenas - Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
  Email: cebernalc at unal dot edu dot co
• Rocco Oliveto - University of Molise, Pesche (IS), Italy.
  E-mail: rocco.oliveto at unimol dot it
• Massimiliano Di Penta - University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy.
  Email: dipenta at unisannio dot it
• Denys Poshyvanyk - The College of William and Mary.
  E-mail: denys at cs dot wm dot edu