Change Impact Analysis of Object-oriented Software

软件系统随着时间的推移而发展，以适应环境的变化。优雅的软件发展要求在功能上只发生预期的变化；虽然这是可取的，但这很难实现。需要软件工具来自动化包含不同组件的复杂软件系统的演变，方法是向程序员报告更改影响信息，允许检查代码编辑的影响。对变更影响分析的工具支持显然有可能提高程序员的工作效率并实现安全的代码增强。变更影响分析中的这项研究假设开发了一个具有一套测试的面向对象系统，并在系统更新以检查变更的安全性时运行。分析可以确定哪些测试受到影响，哪些更改影响这些测试中的每一个。由于这些测试通常执行独立的功能，因此受影响的测试对应于可能已更改的功能。这项研究将开发一个用于Java变更影响分析的交互式工具，作为工业强度编程环境的一部分，以确保实用性。该工具将允许对变更和程序表示的粒度进行实验，增量分析，收集Java基准测试套件，以及应用到协作软件开发中。

Software systems evolve over time in order to adapt to changes inenvironment. Graceful software evolution requires that only expectedchanges in functionality occur; while desirable, this is difficult toachieve. Software tools are needed to automate the evolution ofcomplex software systems containing heterogeneous components, byreporting change impact information to programmers, allowingexamination of the effects of code edits. Tool support for changeimpact analysis has a clear potential to boost programmer productivityand enable safe code enhancement.This research in change impact analysis assumes that anobject-oriented system is developed with a suite of tests, run as thesystem is updated to check the safety of changes. Analyses candetermine which tests are affected and which changes affect each ofthese tests. Since these tests often exercise independentfunctionalities, the tests affected correspond to thosefunctionalities that may have been altered. This research will developan interactive tool for change impact analysis of Java, as part of aindustrial-strength programming environment to ensure practicality.The tool will allow experimentation with the granularity of changesand program representations, incrementalization of the analyses,collection of a Java benchmark suite, and application to collaborativesoftware development.