METHODS FOR SUPPLYING CODE ANALYSIS RESULTS BY USING USER LANGUAGE

• US 20080195999A1
• Filed: 12/14/2007
• Published: 08/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Panaya Ltd. (Infosys Limited)
• Original Assignee: Panaya Inc. (Infosys Limited)
• Inventors: Cohen, Yossi, Armoni, Roy, Weiss, Dror, Cohen, Mati, Marcu, Nir, Konforty, Tomer
• Application Number:
  US11/956,477
• Publication Number:
  US 20080195999A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/75 Structural analysis for program understanding

Abstract

Methods comprising the steps of receiving a code to be analyzed; running a flow analysis of the received code; running a backward and/or forward analysis, whereby the analysis returns at least one input statement; selecting at least one externally-visible statement from the returned list of statements; associating each externally-visible statement with its appropriate user-language description; and supplying a user the at least one user-language description that is associated with the externally-visible statement.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a code to be analyzed;

running a flow analysis of the received code;

running a backward analysis, whereby the backward analysis returns at least one input statement;

selecting at least one externally-visible input statement from the returned list of input statements;

associating each externally-visible input statement with its appropriate user-language description; and

supplying the at least one user-language description that is associated with the externally-visible input statement.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one user-language description is supplied to a human user and further comprising the step of adapting the user-language description to the human user.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one user-language description supplied is coupled with at least one of the following:

a statement, trace, and a graphical flow representation.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one user-language description supplied is coupled with at least one graphical flow representation, and the graphical flow representation comprises at least one of the following:

a flow chart comprising code statements, user-language description elements, and a flow chart comprising externally-visible statements.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the flow analysis is outputting a graph or an index;

the graph comprises at least one externally-visible input statement and at least one externally-visible output statement;

wherein the externally-visible statements are selected from the group of;

input statements, output statements, user exits, and a combination thereof.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the externally-visible input statement is selected from the group of:

a read from file statement, a read from table statement, a read from GUI statement, and a combination thereof.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of associating each externally-visible input statement with its appropriate user-language description, when the externally-visible input statement is a read from a file or read from a table, comprises the steps of:

searching for a statement that writes to the file or table; and

identifying the user interface element that is associated with the statement that writes to the file or table;

whereby the identified user interface element is used for the user-language description.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of associating each externally-visible input statement with its appropriate user-language description comprises at least one of the following steps:

utilizing a list of predefined externally-visible input statements and their corresponding user-language descriptions, and identifying the user-language description by matching a predefined functional criterion.

9. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a code to be analyzed;

running a flow analysis of the received code;

running a forward analysis, whereby the forward analysis returns at least one output statement;

selecting at least one externally-visible output statement from the returned list of output statements;

associating each externally-visible output statement with its appropriate user-language description; and

supplying the at least one user-language description that is associated with the externally-visible output statement.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of adapting the user-language description to a human user, and the at least one user-language description supplied is coupled with at least one of the following:

a statement, a trace, a graphical flow representation, a flow chart comprising code statements, a flow chart comprising user-language description elements, and a flow chart comprising externally-visible statements.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the user-language descriptions are screens, and the screens are classified according to their conceptual type.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the flow analysis is outputting a graph and the graph comprises at least one externally-visible input statement and at least one externally-visible output statement, whereby the externally-visible statements are selected from the group of:

input statements, output statements, user exits, and a combination thereof.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the flow analysis is outputting an index and the index comprises at least one externally-visible input statement list and at least one externally-visible output statement list, whereby the externally-visible statements are selected from the group of:

input statements, output statements, user exits, and a combination thereof.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the user-language description is selected from the group of screens and transactions and the step of associating each externally-visible output statement with its appropriate user-language description comprises using the semantics of the externally-visible output statement.

15. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a code to be analyzed;

running a flow analysis of the received code, wherein the flow analysis is outputting a pointer graph;

following the pointer graph and locating at least one relevant externally-visible variable;

associating the at least one relevant externally-visible variable with its appropriate user-language description; and

supplying the at least one user-language description that is associated with the at least one externally-visible variable.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising the step of adapting the user-language description to a human user, and wherein the at least one user-language description supplied is coupled with at least one of the following:

a variable, a trace, a graphical flow representation, a flow chart comprising user-language description elements, and a flow chart comprising externally-visible variables.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the user-language descriptions are screens, and the screens are classified according to their conceptual type.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the pointer graph comprises vertices and edges, wherein the vertices comprise variables and the edges comprise connections between pointing variables and pointed variables;

at least one of the variables is an externally-visible variable selected from the group of;

input variables, and output variables.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the step of following the pointer graph comprises following the pointer graph backwards and locating at least one externally-visible input variable.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the step of following the pointer graph comprises following the pointer graph forwards and locating at least one externally-visible output variable.

21. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a flow analysis of a code;

running a code analysis, whereby the code analysis returns a list of statements;

selecting at least one externally-visible statement from the returned list of statements;

receiving a user-language description for each selected externally-visible statement; and

supplying the received user-language descriptions.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising the step of adapting the user-language description to a human user, and supplying the user-language description coupled with at least one of the following:

a statement, a trace, and a graphical flow representation.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the user-language descriptions are screens, and the screens are classified according to their conceptual type.

24. The method of claim 21, wherein the code analysis is a backward slicing analysis and the returned list of statements is a list of input statements.

25. The method of claim 21, wherein the code analysis is a forward slicing analysis and the returned list of statements is a list of output statements.