Differencing and Merging of Architectural Views

Existing approaches to differencing and merging architectural views are based on restrictive assumptions such as requiring view elements to have unique identifiers or exactly matching types. We propose an approach based on structural information by generalizing a published polynomial-time tree-to-tree correction algorithm (that detects inserts, renames and deletes) into a novel algorithm to additionally detect restricted moves and support forcing and preventing matches between view elements. We incorporate the algorithm into tools to compare and merge component-and-connector (C&C) architectural views. Finally, we provide an empirical evaluation of the algorithm on case studies to find and reconcile interesting divergences between architectural views