Coupling - Based Analysis of Object - Oriented Software

COUPLING-BASED ANALYSIS OF OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE Aynur Abdurazik, PhD George Mason University, 2007 Dissertation Director: Jeff Offutt Testing and maintenance of Object-Oriented (OO) software is expensive and difficult. Previous research has shown that complex relationships among OO software components are among the key factors that make testing and maintenance costly and challenging. Thus, measuring the relationships has become a prerequisite to develop efficient techniques for testing and maintenance. Coupling analysis is a powerful technique for assessing relationships among software components. In coupling analysis, two components are coupled if any kind of connection or relationship exists between them. The coupling nature is categorized into different levels or types. Coupling analysis tries, by defining a theoretical model, to capture all the attributes of the relationships among components of a given program. It also quantifies the coupling levels by defining a set of measures. The theoretical model and the measurement set serve as a foundation for exercising complexity analysis on various problems that are related to the interaction among components. This research presents a theoretical model of OO coupling, quantitative analysis techniques to measure coupling, engineering techniques to apply coupling to three specific and well-known testing and maintenance problems, and empirical evaluations