Research And Implementation Of The Technique For Software Architecture Reconstruction

Software Architecture (SA) is an important means to control the complexity of software systems, to improve software quality and to support software development and software reuse. However, in practice the architectural documentation of large number software systems frequently does not exist and even when it does exist, it is often out of sync with the implemented system—these increasing the overall difficulty of software maintenance. Thus, the researches on the effective methods for extracting, analyzing, reasoning and reconstructing software architecture from available evidence are very important for extending the Life of Legacy system, improving efficiency and reducing the costs of software maintenance.A systematic research about the current generic processes, methods, and tools for reconstructing software architectures is carried out. According to current generic processes, a generic technique framework which includes architectural viewpoint, data gathering, information abstract and information interpretation is summarized. The framework provides a basic technical guideline for performing architecture reconstruction tasks.The key technique of software architecture reconstruction (SAR) is studied in detail. Then a novel method based on matrix for SAR is presented. The dependency structure matrix (DSM) was invented for optimizing product development processes. In this thesis, the idea of the DSM to the SAR is introduced; the matrix is used to represent the dependencies between modules. A variety of algorithms such as partitioning algorithm are available to help organize the matrix in a form that reflects the architecture patterns and problematic dependencies that violate the design rules.According to the technique framework, the analysis has been implemented in a tool called NEL. Finally, a case study and evaluation for NEL is described. The results illustrate that base on the method we proposed we can easily identify and locate violations, and keep the code and its architecture in conformance with one another during software maintenance.