Title :
Understanding Execution Traces Using Massive Sequence and Circular Bundle Views
Author :
Cornelissen, Bas ; Holten, Danny ; Zaidman, Andy ; Moonen, Leon ; Van Wijk, Jarke J. ; Van Deursen, Arie
Author_Institution :
Delft Univ. of Technol., Delft
Abstract :
The use of dynamic information to aid in software understanding is a common practice nowadays. One of the many approaches concerns the comprehension of execution traces. A major issue in this context is scalability: due to the vast amounts of information, it is a very difficult task to successfully find your way through such traces without getting lost. In this paper, we propose the use of a novel trace visualization method based on a massive sequence and circular bundle view, constructed with scalability in mind. By means of three usage scenarios that were conducted on three different software systems, we show how our approach, implemented in a tool called EXTRAVIS, is applicable to the areas of trace exploration, feature location, and feature comprehension.
Keywords :
program diagnostics; program visualisation; reverse engineering; software maintenance; circular bundle view; execution trace visualization; massive sequence; program comprehension; software maintenance; software understanding; Computer vision; Data analysis; Data visualization; Documentation; Face detection; Phase detection; Scalability; Software engineering; Software maintenance; Software systems;
Conference_Titel :
Program Comprehension, 2007. ICPC '07. 15th IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Banff, Alberta, BC
Print_ISBN :
0-7695-2860-0
DOI :
10.1109/ICPC.2007.39