Change Impact Analysis and Software Evolution Specification for Continually Evolving Systems

Precision in change impact analysis ensures the correctness and completeness of the software evolution. Current research on impact analysis is based on the program code analysis. Also these techniques extract the data flow and control flow information at the statement and variable level which is too granular to be of use at higher levels of change management. The change impact analysis techniques need to be applied initially at the architecture design level to capture module dependencies without being dependent on coding style and/or coding technique. But the current architecture models do not explicitly capture the module dependencies. Hence the architectural style needs to explicitly capture the module and data dependencies in its metamodel. This will facilitate the precise change impact analysis. We have defined Temporal Control Flow Rule-based Architecture (TeCFRA) to provide for the same. TeCFRA models these dependencies using control flow rules as connectors. We have also designed an architecture description language (ADL), which supports the specification of TeCFRA-based system as well as specification of its evolutions. The approach allows us to enhance the precision in change impact analysis and in the evolution specification.