Dependency Analysis

Definition:

Leverages static dependencies between program elements. Can be used to validate and describe the interdependence between elements.

Variations:

Data Dependency

Control Dependency

Structural Dependency:

A metric that represents how much of the structural context of a feature can be mapped from a set of program elements.

Priority Order

Extraction > Categorize > Group

Inputs:

• Source Code

Outputs:

• Dependence graph

Examples:

• (Ali et al. 2011)
• (Nöbauer et al. 2014a)
• (Klatt et al. 2014)
• (Linsbauer et al. 2014)

Tools

• Dependency Finder
• Java Dependency Analysis Tool
• eDepend

Related Techniques

• Formal Concept Analysis

Recommended Situations:

To perform Dependency Analysis is almost mandatory that the products have high level of dependencies between feature implementations. Besides that, a good documentation is not required when applying this technique.

Not Recommended Situations:

As an static analysis technique, dependency analysis may be unable to find all elements related to the same feature when applied in source code where the implementation of a feature is spread across several modules.