Code Flows: Visualizing Structural Evolution of Source Code

Understanding detailed changes done to source code is of great importance in software maintenance. We present Code Flows, a method to visualize the evolution of source code geared to the understanding of fine and mid-level scale changes across several file versions. We enhance an existing visual metaphor to depict software structure changes with techniques that emphasize both following unchanged code as well as detecting and highlighting important events such as code drift, splits, merges, insertions and deletions. The method is illustrated with the analysis of a real-world C++ code system.

Code Flows: Visualizing Structural Evolution of Source Code

Understanding detailed changes done to source code is of great importance in software maintenance. We present Code Flows, a method to visualize the evolution of source code geared to the understanding of fine and mid-level scale changes across several file versions. We enhance an existing visual metaphor to depict software structure changes with techniques that emphasize both following unchanged code as well as detecting and highlighting important events such as code drift, splits, merges, insertions and deletions. The method is illustrated with the analysis of a real-world C++ code system.

Program analysis for code duplication in logic programs

In this PhD project, we deal with the issue of code duplication in logic programs. In particular semantical duplication or redundancy is generally viewed as a possible seed of inconvenience in all phases of the program lifecycle, from development to maintenance. The core of this research is the elaboration of a theory of semantical duplication, and of an automated program analysis capable of detecting such duplication and which could steer, to some extent, automatic refactoring of program code

Supporting Regression Test Scoping with Visual Analytics

Test managers have to repeatedly select test cases for test activities during evolution of large software systems. Researchers have widely studied automated test scoping, but have not fully investigated decision support with human interaction. We previously proposed the introduction of visual analytics for this purpose. Aim: In this empirical study we investigate how to design such decision support. Method: We explored the use of visual analytics using heat maps of historical test data for test scoping support by letting test managers evaluate prototype visualizations in three focus groups with in total nine industrial test experts. Results: All test managers in the study found the visual analytics useful for supporting test planning. However, our results show that different tasks and contexts require different types of visualizations. Conclusion: Important properties for test planning support are: ability to overview testing from different perspectives, ability to filter and zoom to compare subsets of the testing with respect to various attributes and the ability to manipulate the subset under analysis by selecting and deselecting test cases. Our results may be used to support the introduction of visual test analytics in practice

FishEYE: A Forensic Tool for the Visualization of Change-Over-Time in Windows VSS

For the digital forensic examiner, being able to perceive change-over-time supports the goal of being able to explain what happened. In our thesis, we focus on the improvements brought to digital forensic analysis by the visualization of forensic data and its application to digital forensic data that records change-over-time, specifically for a directory-tree structure and its content. By perceiving digital evidence visually, investigators are able to speed up the forensic analysis process, and at the same time better comprehend new unique relationships between data as well as more easily comprehend it in terms of its global context. To provide multiple snapshots of a directory-tree structure, we chose to utilize Shadow Copy (also known as Volume Snapshot Servie or Volume Shadow Copy Service or VSS), a technology included in Microsoft Windows which allows for the taking of manual or automatic backup copies or snapshots of data (including whole volumes) over regular intervals. VSS was chosen since it is a potential gold mine of forensic information, having been included in every version of Microsoft Windows since Windows XP. In this thesis, we propose and develop a tool to take advantage of the information contained within VSS by applying the fisheye focus+context visualization approach to the directory tree structure, with a series of segmented boxes for each to represent change-over-time for each directory/file, accomplishing our goal of providing investigators a clear picture of how a directory-tree structure has changed over time at a glance