Specifying the Law of Demeter and C++ programming guidelines with FCL

The Framework Constraint Language (FCL) is a tool for detecting errors in framework usage. FCL is used to specify the syntactic constraints that frameworks impose on the code of framework-based applications. Violations of these constraints are then detected through static analysis. FCL can also be used to encode design rules such as the Law of Demeter and programming guidelines. This paper introduces FCL and demonstrates its utility in these areas. The version of the FCL language and associated checker described here is targeted at C++