Analysis of JavaScript Programs: Challenges and Research Trends

Abstract

JavaScript has been a de facto standard language for client-side web programs, and now it is expanding its territory to general purpose programs. In this article, we classify the client-side JavaScript research for the last decade or so into six topics: static analysis, dynamic analysis, formalization and reasoning, type safety and JIT optimization, security for web applications, and empirical studies. Because the majority of the research has focused on static and dynamic analyses of JavaScript, we evaluate research trends in the analysis of JavaScript first and then the other topics. Finally, we discuss possible future research directions with open challenges.