Parameter Values of Android APIs: A Preliminary Study on 100,000 Apps
Li Li, Tegawendé François Bissyandé, Jacques Klein, Yves Le Traon · 2016
Parameter values are important elements for understanding how Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are used in practice. In the context of Android, a few number of API methods are used pervasively by millions of apps, where these API methods provide app core functionality. In this paper, we present preliminary insights from ParamHarver, a purely static analysis approach for automatically extracting parameter values from Android apps. Investigations on 100,000 apps illustrate how an in-depth study of parameter values can be leveraged in various scenarios (e.g., to recommend relevant parameter values, or even, to some extent, to identify malicious apps).