Method and system for detecting deprecated elements during runtime

1. A computer-implemented method for controlling access to deprecated methods of an implementation, comprising:

receiving a request to access a method that has been marked as deprecated;

building a call stack for the request;

inspecting the call stack to determine if the request is from an application outside of the implementation; and

denying access to the method if the request is determined to be from the application outside of the implementation upon the inspection;

wherein inspecting the call stack to determine if the request is from the application outside of the implementation includes,

moving through the call stack starting from the method;

bypassing an intervening reflection method if a reflection method separates the method and the request;

locating the request in the call stack; and

determining whether the request is from the application outside of the implementation.

2. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1 , wherein determining whether the request is from the application outside of the implementation includes,

determining whether the request has a domain identical to a domain of the method.

3. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the application outside of the implementation is a test and compatibility kit (“TCK”).

4. A computer-implemented method for controlling access to deprecated methods of an implementation, comprising:

receiving a request to access a method that has been marked as deprecated;

building a call stack for the request;

inspecting the call stack to determine if the request is from an application outside of the implementation, such that inspecting the call stack includes moving through the call stack starting from the method and bypassing an intervening reflection method if a reflection method separates the method and the request; and

acting on the request in accordance with a control policy defined by a pluggable policy;

wherein the pluggable policy denies access to the request if the request is determined to be from outside of the implementation upon the inspection and the request is determined to be outside of the implementation if a domain of the request differs from the domain of the method, and the request is determined to be outside of the implementation if the requests is a non-system request.

5. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 4 , wherein a change in the pluggable policy defines a new control policy for acting on the request.

6. A computer-implemented method for allowing access to a deprecated element of a software implementation, the method comprising:

invoking the deprecated element of the software implementation by a caller element;

invoking an access controller, the access controller including a pluggable access control policy; and

determining an accessibility of the deprecated element by the caller element using the pluggable access control policy, the determining including,

granting access to the caller element if the caller element satisfies a criteria of the access control policy; and

denying access to the caller element if the caller element fails to satisfy the criteria of the access control policy;

wherein the criteria of the access control policy is allowing access to the caller element if the caller element has a domain identical to the domain of the software implementation, and wherein a plurality of stack frames of a call stack are built in successive order, as the deprecated element, an intervening element, and the caller element are invoked, and bypassing an intervening element if a reflection element separates the deprecated element.

7. A computer-implemented method for determining an accessibility of a caller element to a deprecated method of a software implementation, the method comprising:

invoking an access controller, the access controller including a pluggable access control policy configured to deny access to the caller element having a domain different than the domain of the software implementation; and

limiting access to the deprecated method using the access control policy,

wherein limiting access to the deprecated method using the access control policy includes,

allowing the caller element access to the deprecated method if the domain of the caller element is identical to the domain of the software implementation; and

denying the caller element access to the deprecated method if the domain of the caller element differs from the domain of the software implementation, and moving through a call stack starting from the method, bypassing an intervening element if a reflection element separates the deprecated method.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein the domain of the caller element is identical to the domain of the software implementation if the caller element is an element of the software implementation.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , wherein the domain of the caller element differs from the domain of the software implementation if the caller element is an element of a software application.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 , wherein the software application is a test and compatibility kit (“TCK”).