Detecting Architectural Violations using Version History

• Cristiano Amaral Maffort CEFET / UFMG
• Marco Tulio Valente UFMG
• Mariza A. S. Bigonha UFMG

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbqs.2012.15310

Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to detect architectural violations in object-oriented software products. Basically, the proposed approach collects historical information on the inter-class dependency relations of an existing system in order to identify usage and disuse patterns that can suggest the existence of architectural violations in the source code. To evaluate the proposed approach, the paper also presents results of its application in the main administrative information system of a university, with 1852 classes and interfaces. For this purpose, we have collected information on 4923 revisions stored in this system version control platform. As a result, the proposed approach detected 92% of the existing architectural divergences (recall), with a precision of 67%.

Keywords: Detection, Architectural Violations, Version History

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