A change impact analysis tool: integration between static and dynamic analysis techniques

Abstract

Accepting too many software change requests could contribute to expense and delay in project delivery. On the other hand rejecting the changes may increase customer dissatisfaction. Software project management might use a reliable estimation on potential impacted artifacts to decide whether to accept or reject the changes. In software development phase, an assumption that all classes in the class artifact are completely developed is impractical compared to software maintenance phase. This is due to some classes in the class artifact are still under development or partially developed. This paper is a continuous effort from our previous work on combining between static and dynamic analysis techniques for impact analysis. We have converted the approach to an automated tool and call it a CIAT (Change Impact Analysis Tool). The significant achievements of the tool are demonstrated through an extensive experimental validation using several case studies. The experimental analysis shows improvement in the accuracy over current impact analysis results.