Structure visualization and analysis for software dependence network

With the wide application of software system in the real world, its functions and structure become more and more complex in order to satisfy user´s requirements. Software visualization and measurement provide a rational way to understand the large-scale software system. In the paper, a new visualization and measurement framework is proposed for object-oriented software. In the aspect of software structure visualization, dependence reverse analysis based on Doxygen is discussed at first. After achieving the dependence relations between software components, Graphviz is integrated into our tool to display the dependence network. On the other hand, four metrics in complex network, i.e. network diameter, degree distribution, clustering coefficient and community structure, are introduced to measure the complexity of software dependence network. In addition, an empirical analysis on two real-world software systems is performed to validate our methods and tool.