Automatic generation of package diagram to understand Java packages

Program comprehension is a prerequisite in most software maintenance and evolution tasks. Given an unfamiliar system, it is difficult for practitioners to determine which software artifacts are relevant to the current task. Generally, there are a variety of packages in a Java software system. These packages often have different intents and different relationships between each other. Different information of packages and the relationships between different stereotypes packages form a signature of the system. This paper proposes a novel approach to automatically generate the description of the packages and its diagram to show relationships between the packages. The generated description and diagram can allow developers to more easily understand the main intent and structure of the system.