A METHOD TO ASSIST THE MAINTENANCE OF OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE SYSTEMS USING IMPACT ANALYSIS

摘要

The Complex nature of the relationships present inrnObject-Oriented system has made it complicated tornunderstand. Inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation,rninformation hiding, aggregation and associationrncombination has made maintenance of Object Orientedrnsystems complicated. Maintenance activities often havernunfore seen or unexpected effects on the system. Theserneffects can ripple through system componentsrncomplicating maintenance and testing of the system.rnLocating the effects of maintenance provides thernmaintainer with knowledge that assists in debugging andrntesting modified and affected components. ArnComparative Software Maintenance (CSM) methodologyrnhas been developed in this study to assist in thernmaintenance of Object Oriented systems. Using Java as arntest language, CSM locates potential side effects, ripplerneffects and other effects of maintenance on classrnstructures, methods, and objects. CSM uses low-levelrnsoftware architecture model to capture the essence of arnJava system. CSM performs either predictive, premodificationrnimpact analysis on a Java system or postmodificationrnimpact analysis on two different versions ofrnthe same OO system. An improved impact analysisrnprocedure that determines impact of changes to therncomponent level is presented. The results of impactrnanalysis is applied to determine the component levelrntesting requirements. The CSM methodology isrnimplemented in JFlex, a software tool for OO programrnmaintenance.