Dependence analysis is useful f o r software maintenance because it indicates the possible effects of a software modification on the rest of a program. This helps the software maintainer evaluate the appropriateness of a software modification, drive regression testing, and determine the vulnerability of critical sections of code. This paper presents a definition of interprocedural dependence analysis and its implementation in a prototype tool that supports software maintenance.
We have developed a prototype software impact analyzer that supports the maintenance of avionics software'. The prototype helps maintain the complexity of software over time, decrease the learning curve for new maintainers, and control the increasing test and maintenance burden. It achieves this by providing hyperlinked views of software structure that increase software understanding, indicating the potential effects of software modifications, indicating components that need to be regression tested, and measuring the complexity of the software as it is modified. A version of the prototype that analyzes software written in Ada is currently being tested and evaluated. A version supporting JOVIAL (573) code is under development.
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