On the Relationships between Static and Dynamic Models in Reverse Engineering Java Software

Abstract

An experimental environment for reverse engineering Java software is discussed. Static information is extracted from class files and viewed using Rigi reverse engineering environment. The dynamic information is generated by running the target software under a debugger. The debugged event trace information is viewed as scenario diagrams using a prototype tool called SCED. In SCED state diagrams can be synthesized automatically from scenario diagrams. Dynamic information can also be attached to the static Rigi graph. Both static and dynamic views contain information about software artifacts and their relations. Such overlapping information forms a connection for information exchange between the views. SCED scenario diagrams are used for slicing the Rigi view and the Rigi view, in turn, is used to guide the generation of SCED scenario diagrams and for raising their level of abstraction