Measuring graph abstractions of software: an information-theory approach

Author

Allen, Edward B.

Author_Institution

Mississippi State Univ., MS, USA

fYear

2002

fDate

2002

Firstpage

182

Lastpage

193

Abstract

A graph composed of nodes and edges may be an abstraction of a software system and a subgraph may represent a software module. Software-design graphs depict components and their relationships. Building on prior work by E.B. Allen, T.M. Khoshgoftaar and Y. Chen (2001), this paper proposes information theory-based measures on graphs at the system and module levels for application to software. We propose measures of size, length, complexity, coupling and cohesion which largely conform to the properties of these attributes defined by L.C. Briand, S. Morasca and V.R. Basili (1996, 1997). We illustrate the measures with examples and suggest extensions for hypergraphs

Keywords

graph theory; information theory; software metrics; subroutines; excess entropy; graph abstraction measurement; graph edges; graph nodes; hypergraphs; information theory; measurement theory; module cohesion; module complexity; module coupling; module length; module size; software component relationships; software design graphs; software metrics; software modules; software system abstractions; subgraphs; Software measurement; Software metrics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Software Metrics, 2002. Proceedings. Eighth IEEE Symposium on

Conference_Location

Ottawa, Ont.

ISSN

1530-1435

Print_ISBN

0-7695-1339-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/METRIC.2002.1011337

Filename

1011337