• Calendar

February 29, Wednesday
14:00 – 15:00

An important feature of web search interfaces are the restrictions enforced on input values – those reflecting either the semantics of the data or requirements specific to the interface. Both integrity constraints and “access restrictions” can be of great use to web exploration tools. We demonstrate here a novel technique for discovering constraints that requires no form submissions whatsoever. We work via statically analyzing the JavaScript client-side code used to enforce the constraints, when such code is available. We combine custom recognizers for JavaScript functions relevant to constraint-checking with a generic program analysis layer. Integrated with a web browser, our system shows the constraints detected on accessed web forms, and allows a user to see the corresponding JavaScript code fragment.