CCVisu: automatic visual software decomposition

ABSTRACT

Understanding the structure of large existing (and evolving) software systems is a major challenge for software engineers. In reverse engineering, we aim to compute, for a given software system, a decomposition of the system into its subsystems. CCVisu is a lightweight tool that takes as input a software graph model and computes a visual representation of the system's structure, i.e., it structures the system into separated groups of artifacts that are strongly related, and places them in a 2- or 3-dimensional space. Besides the decomposition into subsystems, it reveals the relatedness between the subsystems via interpretable distances. The tool reads a software graph from a simple text file in RSF format, e.g., call, inheritance, containment, or co-change graphs. The resulting system structure is currently either directly presented on the screen, or written to an output file in SVG, VRML, or plain text format. The tool is designed as a reusable software component, easy to use, and easy to integrate into other tools; it is based on efficient algorithms and supports several formats for data interchange.

REFERENCES

• 1: Dirk Beyer , Andreas Noack, Clustering Software Artifacts Based on Frequent Common Changes, Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Program Comprehension, p.259-268, May 15-16, 2005 [doi>10.1109/WPC.2005.12]
• 2: D. Beyer and A. Noack. Mining co-change clusters from version repositories. Technical Report IC/2005/003, EPFL Lausanne, 2005.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.7 Distribution, Maintenance, and Enhancement
          Subjects: Restructuring, reverse engineering, and reengineering

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.11 Software Architectures
            Subjects: Data abstraction
        D.2.13 Reusable Software
            Subjects: Reusable libraries
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: Modules and interfaces

  E. Data
  E.1 DATA STRUCTURES
      Subjects: Graphs and networks

  G. Mathematics of Computing
  G.2 DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
      G.2.2 Graph Theory
          Subjects: Graph algorithms

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Documentation

Keywords:
clustering, force-directed graph layout, reverse engineering, software decomposition, software quality assurance, software visualization