Constructing precise object relation diagrams

Abstract

The object relation diagram (ORD) of a program is a class interdependence diagram which has applications in a wide variety of software engineering problems (e.g., integration testing, integration coverage analysis, regression testing, impact analysis, program understanding, and reverse engineering). Because the imprecision of the ORD directly affects the practicality of its usage, it is important to investigate techniques for constructing precise ORDs. This paper makes three contributions. First, we develop the extended object relation diagram (ExtORD), a version of the ORD designed for use in integration coverage analysis. The ExtORD shows the specific statement that creates an interclass dependence, and can be easily constructed by extending techniques for ORD construction. Second, we develop a general algorithm for ORD construction, parameterized by class analysis. Third, we demonstrate empirically that relatively precise class analyses can significantly improve diagram precision compared to earlier work, resulting in average size reduction of 55% for the ORD and 39% for the ExtORD.