Generation of Repair Plans for Change Propagation.pdfVIP

Generation of Repair Plans for Change Propagation Khanh Hoa Dam and Michael Winikoff School of Computer Science and Information Technology, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia {kdam,winikoff}@.au Abstract. One of the most critical problems in software maintenance and evo- lution is propagating changes. Although many approaches have been proposed, automated change propagation is still a significant technical challenge in soft- ware engineering. In this paper we present an agent-oriented change propagation framework based on fixing inconsistencies when primary changes are made to design models. A core piece of the framework is a new method for generating repair plans from OCL constraints that restrict these models. 1 Introduction Software evolution is critical in the life-cycle of successful software systems, especially those operating in highly volatile domains such as banking, e-commerce and telecom- munications. A basic operation of software evolution is change: in order to adapt the system to the desired requirements (be they new, modified, or an environmental change) the system is changed [1]. In practice, the software engineer usually starts making some primary changes that he/she can easily identify based on the characteristics of the change requests and/or his/her knowledge and expertise. However, these primary changes are not enough to make the design meet the change requests and may also create inconsistencies. As a result, additional, secondary, changes might be needed. The process of determining and making secondary changes is termed change prop- agation. Since complex software systems consist of many artefacts, both design and code, and since there are usually many options when making secondary changes, change propagation is a complicated, labour-intensive, and expensive process. Hence, there is a need for tools that provide more effective automated support for change propagation. We do not believe that change propagation can be