SEMANTIC-BASED QUERY TECHNIQUES FOR SOURCE CODE

• US 20070050343A1
• Filed: 08/23/2006
• Published: 03/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Infosys Limited
• Original Assignee: Infosys Technologies Limited (Infosys Limited)
• Inventors: Sarkar, Santonu, Thonse, Srinivas, Sindhgatta, Renuka, Pooloth, Krishnakumar, Siddaramappa, Nagaraja
• Granted Patent: US 8,566,789 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95

Abstract

A powerful set of features can assist software developers in searching source code. Source code can be queried to find occurrences of source code elements mapped to domain concepts appearing in an ontology. Queries can specify a search for occurrences of particular operations performed on domain concepts within the source code. Query expansion can be used to locate related domain concepts as indicated in the ontology. Query keyword weighting can be used to emphasize one domain concept over another. Tools can be provided to create the ontology and associate the ontology with the elements appearing in the source code. Results can include user interface features assisting in navigation to a location within the source code associated with the query results.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a query for software source code, wherein the query comprises one or more queried domain concept names;

processing the query, wherein the processing comprises finding where, within the software source code, one or more source code element names mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names appear; and

displaying results of the query.

2. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 1.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the query comprises one or more respective operations for the domain concept names; and

the processing comprises finding where within the software source code the one or more respective operations are performed on one or more source code element names mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein finding where within the source code the one or more respective operations are performed comprises:

finding where within the source code the one or more respective operations are performed on variables in the source code that are of a type indicated by a source code element name mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein:

the results indicate a description of the one or more respective operations performed for the one or more source code element names mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein:

the results comprise a list of hit entries indicating respective locations in the source code where the one or more respective operations are performed on one or more source code element names mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names.

7. The method of claim 3 wherein:

the results comprise a list of methods in the source code within which the one or more respective operations are performed on one or more source code element names mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names.

8. The method of claim 3 wherein:

the results comprise a hyperlink to a location in the source code within which the one or more respective operations are performed on one or more source code element names mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

expanding the query via an ontology.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein:

expanding comprises assigning weights to expanded query terms that are different from weights in the query.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the query further comprises one or more domain concept names indicated as prohibited;

the processing avoids finding source code units in which source code elements mapped to the prohibited domain concept names appear.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the processing searches a plurality of code semantics descriptors for respective source code units, wherein the code semantics descriptors describe source code elements in the source code units in terms of domain concepts.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein:

the processing searches the plurality of code semantics descriptors via an index of the plurality of code semantics descriptors.

14. A computer-implemented method of searching software source code, the method comprising:

receiving a query for the software source code, wherein the query comprises one or more domain concepts;

processing the query against the software source code; and

providing results of the processing;

wherein the results indicate a description of one or more operations performed in the software source code on one or more source code elements mapped to respective domain concepts of the query.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein:

a plurality of descriptors are associated with respective methods appearing in the source code; and

the operations described in the descriptors are performed within the respective methods associated with the descriptors.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein:

the query comprises at least one domain concept;

the results indicate at least one instance within the source code at which a source code element associated with the at least one domain concept appears;

the method further comprising;

displaying a characterization of how the source code element associated with the domain concept is utilized in the at least one instance.

17. A computer-implemented method of searching software source code, the method comprising:

receiving a query for the software source code, wherein the query comprises one or more queried domain concept names and one or more respective operations for the domain concept names, wherein one or more respective source code element names appearing in the software source code are mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names;

processing the query, wherein the processing comprises finding where, within the software source code, there are occurrences of the source code element names that are mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names in which the one or more respective operations are performed on the one or more source code element names; and

providing results of processing the query.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein:

source code elements appearing in the source code are mapped to respective domain concepts of the domain concepts; and

a plurality of source code semantic descriptors describe operations performed on source code elements in terms of the domain concepts; and

the finding comprises finding, in the code semantic descriptors, occurrences of the one or more operations performed on the respective domain concepts.

19. One or more computer-readable media having encoded thereon a data structure comprising:

a description of operations performed, within a unit of source code, on respective source code elements mapped to domain concept names, wherein the description uses respective domain concept names in place of names of the source code elements;

a link to a location within the source code indicating where, within the source code, the source code unit within which the operations are performed appears.

20. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 19 wherein:

the source code unit is a method defined in an object class; and

the link indicates where within the source code the method appears.

21. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 19 wherein:

the link comprises a file name and starting line number of the source code unit.

22. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 19 wherein:

the description of operations performed comprises at least one chosen from a group consisting of the following;

a description of a read operation performed on a source code element in the unit of source code;

a description of a create operation performed on a source code element in the unit of source code;

a description of an update operation performed on a source code element in the unit of source code; and

a description of a delete operation performed on a source code element in the unit of source code.

23. A query processing system comprising:

means for receiving a query for software source code, wherein the query comprises one or more queried domain concept names;

means for processing the query, wherein the means for processing is configured to find where, within the software source code, one or more source code element names mapped to the one or more queried domain concept names appear; and

means for displaying results of the query.

24. A method comprising:

generating a plurality of code semantic descriptors from source code, wherein the code semantic descriptors indicate operations performed in the source code on source code elements in the source code that are mapped to respective domain concepts stored in an ontology, wherein the code semantic descriptors indicate the operations performed on the source code elements in the source code in terms of the respective domain concepts to which the source code elements are mapped, wherein the code semantic descriptors indicate operations performed in respective methods of the source code;

wherein the ontology is a domain-specific ontology tailored to a problem domain within which an application of which the source code is a part falls;

receiving a query, wherein the query specifies one or more domain concepts and respective operations performable on the domain concepts;

processing the query against the plurality of code semantic descriptors, the processing identifying which methods in the source code contain occurrences of the domain concepts specified in the query in which the respective operations are performed on the domain concepts specified in the query; and

displaying results of the query, wherein the results comprise an indication of which methods in the source code contain occurrences of the domain concepts specified in the query in which the respective operations are performed on the domain concepts specified in the query.