Understanding Software Features by Integrating Dynamic and Static Analysis

Description

Software engineers dealing with large systems often need to locate the code that implements a specific user feature.  The software reconnaissance technique, developed in SERC, is one of the better known ways to address this feature location problem.  The Recon3 toolset provides support for this technique. 

Many companies already use commercial tools for test coverage and static analysis.   In 2004-2005 a short-term SERC project with Motorola considered how software reconnaissance could be effective using tools already in use at Motorola combined with components from the free Recon3 toolset.  The study showed that these three tools could work together, but getting data from one tool to the next was slow and cumbersome. The purpose of the study is to provide better tool integration to allow the package to become part of Motorola software engineering practice.