Extraction of Attribute Dependency Graph from Database Applications

Database applications constitute a large portion of the software systems. This paper proposes a novel graph called attribute dependency graph to show the dependencies between attributes in a database application and also the programs involved. We propose an approach to automatically extract the attribute dependency graph through analyzing the source code of database applications. The extracted information can be used in the maintenance process particularly in the impact analysis upon modification of a database application. A tool has been developed to implement the proposed approach for PHP-based database applications. Case studies have also been conducted to demonstrate the use of our proposed approach.