Architectural layer recovery for software system understanding and evolution

摘要

This paper presents an approach to identify software layers for the understanding and evolution of software systems implemented with any object-oriented programming language. The approach first identifies relations between the classes of a software system and then uses a link analysis algorithm (i.e. the Kleinberg , algorithm) to group them into layers. Additionally to assess the approach and the underlying techniques, the paper also presents a prototype of a supporting tool and the results from a case study.