Method to find a violation of a coding rule in program

1. A method for determining a convention violation of a program on a computer comprising a violation storing unit for beforehand storing violation information indicating a structure of the program violating a convention for each of a plurality of conventions; and a conversion rule storing unit for storing a predetermined plurality of conversion rules, comprising steps of:

receiving an input of the program potentially violating the convention;

selecting one or more conversion rules;

sequentially applying the one or more of conversion rules into an abstract syntax tree of the program;

converting the abstract syntax tree into a plurality of conversion trees;

storing a pre-conversion sub-tree of the abstract syntax tree based on the abstract syntax tree prior to conversion into the plurality of conversion trees;

storing a post-conversion sub-tree of the abstract syntax tree based on the converted abstract syntax tree;

associating the pre-conversion sub-tree of the abstract syntax tree with the post-conversion sub-tree of the abstract syntax tree;

determining that the program violates the convention on condition that at least part of a structure is common between the pre-conversion and post-conversion sub-trees, and that the common part of the structure satisfies any of the violation information stored in the violation storing unit; and

informing a user of the program that the program violates the convention.