A New Technique for Understanding Large-Scale Software Systems

Abstract

Comprehending a huge execution trace is not a straightforward task due to the size of data to be processed. Detecting and removing utilities are useful to facilitate the understanding of software and decrease the complexity and size of the execution trace. The goal of this study is to develop a novel technique to minimize the complexity and the size of traces by detecting and removing utilities from the execution trace of object-oriented software. Two novel utility detection class metrics were suggested to decide the degree that a specific class can be counted as a utility class. Dynamic coupling analysis forms the basis for the proposed technique to address object-oriented features. The technique presented in this study has been tested by two case studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed technique. The results from the case studies show the usefulness and effectiveness of our technique.

Keywords

• utility classes
• software comprehension
• dynamic coupling analysis
• object-oriented software