IntensiVEA Toolsuite For Documenting

and Checking Structural Source-Code Regularities

Kim Mens 1

Andy Kellens 2

1 Département d’Ingénierie InformatiqueUniversité catholique de Louvain, Belgium

2 Programming Technology LabVrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

Research Problem

• How to document structural source-code regularities?• e.g., naming and coding conventions, as well as

other structural dependencies• shared by many entities spread throughout the code

• How to verify conformance of this documentation to the source code upon evolution?• and provide fine-grained feedback to the developer

in case of problems• to fix the code or refine the documented regularities

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Solution

• Intensional Views• groups of entities spread throughout the code• that share some structural property

• Intensional Relations• binary relationships between such views

• The IntensiVE toolsuite• supports definition of intensional views and relations• enables the verification of constraints on them• provides fine-grained feedback upon problems

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

2 Case Studies

• DelfSTof• Smalltalk prototype for code mining with FCA• Documented interesting regularities before

restructuring• Reverified validity of regularities after restructuring

• SmallWiki• Smalltalk implementation of a WIKI system• Documented regularities on an initial version• Verified validity of regularities on evolved version

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Intensional Views(and Relations)

• Simplified example• Extensional vs. intensional views• Alternative intensions• Relations between views

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Simplified Example

BankAccountowneramountincrease(amount)decrease(amount)calculateInterest()saveToDisk()

SavingsAccount

calculateInterest()saveToDisk()

CheckingAccount

calculateInterest()saveToDisk()

YouthAccount

calculateInterest()expenseLimit()saveToDisk()

BankCardaccountpay(amount)checkPin()saveToDisk()

CreditCard

pay(amount)enoughCredit()saveToDisk()

Source-code View

Collection of source-

code entities

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Extensional vs. Intensional Views

Accounts

CheckingAccount

SavingsAccount

YouthAccount

Extensional

"All subclasses of

BankAccount"

if subclass(?entity,[BankAccount])

Intensional

Evaluate

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Alternative IntensionsAccounts

"All subclasses of

BankAccount"

if subclass(?entity,[BankAccount])

"All classes in

package

BankAccount"

if classInPackage(?entity,BankAccount)

Exclude: BankAccount

=

Extensional ConsistencyIntensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Intensional Relation

Intensional Relations

Accounts

Account changing

Methods

Bankcards

Persistence

Methods

Accounts

Account changing

Methods

Bankcards

Persistence

Methods

reference

implement

implement

call

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Intensional RelationsAccount changing

Methods

Persistence

Methodscall

All account changing methods must call a persistence method

Q1 x ∈ V1; Q2 y ∈ V2: x r yQ1,Q2 ∈ {∀,∃,!"#$"%%%}

V1,V2 ∈ Viewsr = predicate over source-

code entitiesIntensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

∀ x ∈ "Account changing methods"∃ y ∈ "Persistence Methods"

x calls y

The IntensionalView Environment

• Seamlessly integrated with Visualworks 7.x• IntensiVE comprises:

• IntensiVE builds upon:

Intensional View EditorView Consistency CheckerRelation EditorRelation CheckerView Displayer

StarBrowser2SOUL + NewLicor(MOOSE + CodeCrawler)

www.intensional.be

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Intensional ViewEditor

www.intensional.be

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

View ConsistencyChecker

www.intensional.be

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Relation Editorwww.intensio

nal.be

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Relation checkerwww.intensio

nal.be

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

View Displayerwww.intensio

nal.be

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

Methodological Aspects

Intensional Views & Relations ❄ IntensiVE ❄ Codifying Structural Regularities ❄ Co-Evolution of Code and Structure

• When using IntensiVE we advocate an incremental and iterative methodology akin to XP testing

• Document regularities by need• Documented regularities are isolated• Document and check regularities frequently• Checking regularities can be done automatically• Failed checks indicate where things need to be fixed• Improves our understanding of the code• Gives us confidence that code is structure as desired• Lightweight set of tools, seamlessly integrated with IDE

Summary

• Light-weight approach similar to XP-testing• Documentation and verification of structural

regularities/coding conventions• Fine-grained feed-back on inconsistencies between

code and documentation

Want to know more ?

• Contact :• Kim Mens (Kim.Mens@uclouvain.be)• Andy Kellens (akellens@vub.ac.be)

• Publications :• TOOLS1999 SEKE2002 ICSM2003 ESUG2005

ICSM2005 (2) CSMR2006 ECOOP2006• Or check our website :

• www.intensional.be