Written by Harry Sneed Birgit Demuth One of the biggest challenges in software maintenance is the need to trace incoming change requests to the code affected by those requests. This need is especially acute in large systems with a million or more lines of code. Maintenance personnel spend a significant portion of their time looking for the code they should alter.
Feature Analysis links change requests to an existing requirements document by analyzing the common nouns they use. Once the affected requirement is found, it is traced to the code which implements it by means of a repository containing all the entities and relationships contained in the code. This article defines the problem, reviews the existing literature on the subject, and presents a tool which the first author has developed for working toward a solution to resolving the problem.
Studies have shown that the greatest cost in software maintenance next to testing is in finding the code affected by the maintenance requests [Lehm98]. Maintenance personnel without intimate knowledge of the entire system are normally helpless when it comes to tracing a change request to those portions of code which have to be changed. If system documentation exists, it is often obsolete or insufficient. The persons responsible for making changes have little insight concerning how to proceed.
They may have a requirements document, but there is no way of getting from the requirements to the pertinent code. There is a wide semantic gap between the natural language requirements and the programming language of the code which cannot be overcome easily. The challenge is to bridge that gap with a minimum of effort in a minimum of time.
This article proposes a method to address this problem. In addition, a tool is available from the author that offers potential to evolve an automated solution. There are many reasons for maintaining a separate requirements document.
