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This dissertation shows that existing functional tests of software features can be used by a developer unfamiliar with the software system to identify source code relevant to those features as well as understand why the source code is relevant.There have been prior techniques to locate features in source code which can be roughly broken down into techniques that use static analysis and those that use dynamic analysis.Features, being behaviors of a system, are dynamic in nature. Therefore, this dissertation focuses on dynamic techniques, rather than the use static techniques.The dynamic techniques all require significant knowledge about the system before the technique can be useful. Furthermore, they all suffer in one or both of these respects: they make binary judgments about which source code artifacts relate to a feature without determining to what extent they relate (meaning that the feature must be precisely characterized, or else the technique will return inaccurate results), or they do not provide an idea of why a piece of code is relevant to a feature.Our technique of creating Dynamic Feature Traces improves upon previous work 1) by taking advantage of an existing test suite thereby reducing the amount of system knowledge necessary to use the technique, 2) by ranking the source code artifacts by how strongly they are related to the feature, and 3) by retaining some part of the execution trace of the test suite so that developers can understand why a piece of code is part of a feature. We show that our technique provides benefit over other techniques by applying it to existing software systems and comparing its results to an existing technique.ii
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Regular readers of this column will have become familiar with database language SQL -- indeed, most readers are already familiar with it. We have also discussed the fact that the SQL standard is being published in multiple parts and have even discussed one of those parts in some detail[l].Another standard, based on SQL and its structured user-defined types[2], has been developed and published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This standard, like SQL, is divided into multiple parts (more independent than the parts of SQL, in fact). Some parts of this other standard, known as SQL/MM, have already been published and are currently in revision, while others are still in preparation for initial publication.In this issue, we introduce SQL/MM and review each of its parts, necessarily at a high level.
Not very long ago, we discussed the creation of a new part of SQL, XML-Related Specifications (SQL/XML), in this column [1]. At the time, we referred to the work that had been done as "infrastructure". We are pleased to be able to say that significant progress has been made, and SQL/XML [2] is now going out for the first formal stage of processing, Final Committee Draft (FCD) ballot, in ISO/IEC JTC1.In our previous column, we described the mapping of SQL 〈identifier〉s to XML Names, SQL data types to XML Schema data types, and SQL values to XML values. There have been a few small corrections and enhancements in these areas, but for the most part the descriptions in our previous column are still accurate.Thc new work that we will discuss in this column comes in three parts. The first part provides a mapping from a single table, all tables in a schema, or all tables in a catalog to an XML document. The second of these parts includes the creation of an XML data type in SQL and adds functions that create values of this new type. These functions allow a user to produce XML from existing SQL data. Finally, the "infrastructure" work that we described in our previous article included the mapping of SQL's predefined data types to XML Schema data types. This mapping has been extended to include the mapping of domains, distinct types, row types, arrays, and multisets.The FCD ballot that we mentioned began in early April. This will allow the comments contained in the ballot responses to be discussed at the Editing Meeting in September or October of this year. We expect the Editing Meeting to recommend progression to Final Draft International Status (FDIS) ballot, which suggests that an International Standard will be published by the middle of 2003.
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