Analysis Details

Avoid Ambiguous or Confusing Uses of Overloading

es.uniovi.reflection.analyses.cmu.met50

This rule detects classes with overloaded methods with a) the same parameter types in a different order; or b) four or more parameters sharing the same types in different implementations. We consider boxed primitive types equivalent to their primitive counterpart for this rule.

Computational Reflection Research Group

09-30-2026 22:23

Program Understandability

Method Declaration

MATCH (enclosingCU)-[:DECLARES_TYPE | HAS_NESTED_TYPE]->(class)-[:DECLARES_METHOD | DECLARES_CONSTRUCTOR]->(md)-[:CALLABLE_PARAM]->(p:PARAMETER_DEC)-[:ITS_TYPE_IS]->(pType)
WITH enclosingCU, md, class, COLLECT(CASE WHEN pType:PRIMITIVE_TYPE THEN 'java.lang.' + REPLACE(REPLACE(p.actualType, "int", "integer"), "char", "character") ELSE toLower(p.actualType) END) as params
MATCH (class)-[:DECLARES_METHOD | DECLARES_CONSTRUCTOR | INHERITS_METHOD]->(md2)-[:CALLABLE_PARAM]->(p2)-[:ITS_TYPE_IS]->(pType)
WHERE md.name = md2.name AND md <> md2
WITH enclosingCU, md, md2, params, COLLECT(CASE WHEN pType:PRIMITIVE_TYPE THEN 'java.lang.' + REPLACE(REPLACE(p2.actualType, "int", "integer"), "char", "character") ELSE toLower(p2.actualType) END) as params2
WHERE ALL(p IN params WHERE p IN params2) AND ALL(p IN params2 WHERE p IN params) AND ((SIZE(params)>=4 AND SIZE(params2)>=4) OR SIZE(params)=SIZE(params2))
RETURN '{"node":"'+md.fullyQualifiedName+'","line":"'+md.lineNumber+'","column":"'+md.column+'","rule":"CMU-MET50","location":"'+enclosingCU.fileName+'","message":"You must avoid confusing overloadings like '+ md.fullyQualifiedName+' in line '+ md.lineNumber+' (very similar to declaration in line ' + md2.lineNumber+') in '+ enclosingCU.fileName+'."}'