A Dynamic Approach to Estimate Change Impact using Type of Change Propagation

Software evolution is an ongoing process carried out with the aim of extending base applications either for adding new functionalities or for adapting software to changing environments. This brings about the need for estimating and determining the overall impact of changes to a software system. In the last few decades many such change/impact analysis techniques have been developed to identify consequences of making changes to software systems. In this paper we propose a new approach of estimating change/impact analysis by classifying change based on type of change classification e.g. (a) nature and (b) extent of change propagation. The impact set produced consists of two dimensions of information: (a) statements affected by change propagation and (b) percentage i.e. statements affected in each category and involving the overall system. We also propose an algorithm for classifying the type of change. To establish confidence in effectiveness and efficiency we illustrate this technique with the help of an example. Results of our analysis are promising towards achieving the aim of the proposed endeavor to enhance change classification. The proposed dynamic technique for estimating impact sets and their percentage of impact will help software maintainers in performing selective regression testing by analyzing impact sets regarding the nature of change and change dependency.