Using Source Code Metrics to Predict Change-Prone Java Interfaces

Using Source Code Metrics to Predict Change-Prone Java Interfaces

Romano, D.
Pinzger, M.

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Software Technology

2011-09-25

Recent empirical studies have investigated the use of source code metrics to predict the change- and defect-proneness of source code files and classes. While results showed strong correlations and good predictive power of these metrics, they do not distinguish between interface, abstract or concrete classes. In particular, interfaces declare contracts that are meant to remain stable during the evolution of a software system while the implementation in concrete classes is more likely to change. This paper aims at investigating to which extent the existing source code metrics can be used for predicting change-prone Java interfaces. We empirically investigate the correlation between metrics and the number of fine-grained source code changes in interfaces of ten Java open-source systems. Then, we evaluate the metrics to calculate models for predicting change-prone Java interfaces. Our results show that the external interface cohesion metric exhibits the strongest correlation with the number of source code changes. This metric also improves the performance of prediction models to classify Java interfaces into change-prone and not change-prone. Accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance, 2011, IEEE CS Press.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:bce1c0f9-aae6-44bf-b0a9-7f377cfef9c2

Delft University of Technology, Software Engineering Research Group

1872-5392

Technical Report Series TUD-SERG-2011-017

Institutional Repository

report

(c) 2011 The authors. Software Engineering Research Group, Department of Software Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Delft University of Technology.