Network-Based Analysis of Software Change Propagation

The object-oriented software systems frequently evolve to meet new change requirements. Understanding the characteristics of changes aids testers and system designers to improve the quality of softwares. Identifying important modules becomes a key issue in the process of evolution. In this context,...

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Main Authors: Rongcun Wang, Rubing Huang, Binbin Qu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2014-01-01
Series:The Scientific World Journal
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/237243
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author Rongcun Wang
Rubing Huang
Binbin Qu
author_facet Rongcun Wang
Rubing Huang
Binbin Qu
author_sort Rongcun Wang
collection DOAJ
description The object-oriented software systems frequently evolve to meet new change requirements. Understanding the characteristics of changes aids testers and system designers to improve the quality of softwares. Identifying important modules becomes a key issue in the process of evolution. In this context, a novel network-based approach is proposed to comprehensively investigate change distributions and the correlation between centrality measures and the scope of change propagation. First, software dependency networks are constructed at class level. And then, the number of times of cochanges among classes is minded from software repositories. According to the dependency relationships and the number of times of cochanges among classes, the scope of change propagation is calculated. Using Spearman rank correlation analyzes the correlation between centrality measures and the scope of change propagation. Three case studies on java open source software projects Findbugs, Hibernate, and Spring are conducted to research the characteristics of change propagation. Experimental results show that (i) change distribution is very uneven; (ii) PageRank, Degree, and CIRank are significantly correlated to the scope of change propagation. Particularly, CIRank shows higher correlation coefficient, which suggests it can be a more useful indicator for measuring the scope of change propagation of classes in object-oriented software system.
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spelling doaj-art-4eb424d55d7542a59f43f2ba5d138c692025-02-03T07:25:00ZengWileyThe Scientific World Journal2356-61401537-744X2014-01-01201410.1155/2014/237243237243Network-Based Analysis of Software Change PropagationRongcun Wang0Rubing Huang1Binbin Qu2School of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430063, ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Telecommunication Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu 212013, ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430063, ChinaThe object-oriented software systems frequently evolve to meet new change requirements. Understanding the characteristics of changes aids testers and system designers to improve the quality of softwares. Identifying important modules becomes a key issue in the process of evolution. In this context, a novel network-based approach is proposed to comprehensively investigate change distributions and the correlation between centrality measures and the scope of change propagation. First, software dependency networks are constructed at class level. And then, the number of times of cochanges among classes is minded from software repositories. According to the dependency relationships and the number of times of cochanges among classes, the scope of change propagation is calculated. Using Spearman rank correlation analyzes the correlation between centrality measures and the scope of change propagation. Three case studies on java open source software projects Findbugs, Hibernate, and Spring are conducted to research the characteristics of change propagation. Experimental results show that (i) change distribution is very uneven; (ii) PageRank, Degree, and CIRank are significantly correlated to the scope of change propagation. Particularly, CIRank shows higher correlation coefficient, which suggests it can be a more useful indicator for measuring the scope of change propagation of classes in object-oriented software system.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/237243
spellingShingle Rongcun Wang
Rubing Huang
Binbin Qu
Network-Based Analysis of Software Change Propagation
The Scientific World Journal
title Network-Based Analysis of Software Change Propagation
title_full Network-Based Analysis of Software Change Propagation
title_fullStr Network-Based Analysis of Software Change Propagation
title_full_unstemmed Network-Based Analysis of Software Change Propagation
title_short Network-Based Analysis of Software Change Propagation
title_sort network based analysis of software change propagation
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/237243
work_keys_str_mv AT rongcunwang networkbasedanalysisofsoftwarechangepropagation
AT rubinghuang networkbasedanalysisofsoftwarechangepropagation
AT binbinqu networkbasedanalysisofsoftwarechangepropagation