Patent ID: 7150008

Claim:
In a computer system that is capable of creating program elements in system memory and executing program element behaviors in system memory, a method for checking executable code to determine if corresponding source code adheres to a software development rule, the method comprising the following: an act of receiving a rule assembly containing one or more software development rules; an act of detecting a targeted software development rule included in the rule assembly in response to the rule assembly advertising that it includes the targeted software development rule, the targeted software development rule being targeted to a specified program element or a specified program element behavior within language independent portable executables such that source code compiled to generate a language independent portable executable can be checked for adherence to the targeted software rule independent of any programming languages used to create the source code; an act of receiving a language independent portable executable target assembly that was compiled from corresponding source code of a programming language, the language independent portable executable target assembly containing metadata and intermediate language instructions, the metadata describing at least one program element defined in the corresponding source code, the intermediate language instructions including operation codes configured to perform operations on portions of the metadata when the language independent portable executable target assembly is executed to cause at least one program element behavior to occur for a program element defined in the corresponding source code; an act of identifying the specified program element or the specified program element behavior within the language independent portable executable target assembly thereby indicating that the specified program element or the specified program element behavior is to be checked to determine if the source code compiled to generate the specified program element or specified program element behavior adheres to the targeted software development rule contained in the rule assembly; and an act of applying the targeted software development rule to the specified program element or the specified program element behavior in the language independent portable executable target assembly to determine if the source code compiled to generate the specified program element or the specified program element behavior adheres to the targeted software development rule such that adherence to the targeted software development rule can be checked for source code in any of a plurality of different programming languages without regard for the specific programming language of the corresponding source code compiled to generate the language independent portable executable target assembly.