Change Impact Analysis of Object-oriented Software

Rutgers University New Brunswick, New Brunswick NJ

Investigators

Abstract

Software systems evolve over time in order to adapt to changes in environment. Graceful software evolution requires that only expected changes in functionality occur; while desirable, this is difficult to achieve. Software tools are needed to automate the evolution of complex software systems containing heterogeneous components, by reporting change impact information to programmers, allowing examination of the effects of code edits. Tool support for change impact analysis has a clear potential to boost programmer productivity and enable safe code enhancement. This research in change impact analysis assumes that an object-oriented system is developed with a suite of tests, run as the system is updated to check the safety of changes. Analyses can determine which tests are affected and which changes affect each of these tests. Since these tests often exercise independent functionalities, the tests affected correspond to those functionalities that may have been altered. This research will develop an interactive tool for change impact analysis of Java, as part of a industrial-strength programming environment to ensure practicality. The tool will allow experimentation with the granularity of changes and program representations, incrementalization of the analyses, collection of a Java benchmark suite, and application to collaborative software development.