Identifying Structural Features of Java Programs by Analysing the Interaction of Classes at Runtime

This paper describes research on visualising Java software at runtime in order to enable the identification of structural features. The aim is to highlight both the static and dynamic structure of the software and aid software engineers in tasks requiring program comprehension of the code. The paper takes the position that this type of analysis and visualisation for object oriented languages must be carried out with dynamic runtime information and that it cannot, in general, be obtained by static analysis alone. A case study is worked through to demonstrate the approach