Assisting the synchronization of UCM-based architectural documentation with implementation

A key aspect of architecture-centric development is the traceability of design documentation. In particular, architects should be always aware of the relationships between the architectural model “as documented” and its corresponding implementation model. The problem is that these two models usually diverge from each other over time, due to factors such as new requirements, refactorings, etc. Therefore, tool assistance is very important to assess the level of conformance between architectural documentation and implementation. In this paper, we present a tool approach called ArchSync that helps architects to conciliate architectural documentation expressed through Use-Case Maps with Java source code, as modifications are being made on the code. ArchSync relies on a heuristic that incrementally detects inconsistencies with respect to the architectural prescriptions, based on the analysis of system execution traces. ArchSync can also give suggestions for re-synchronization. Results of two case-studies showing the applicability of the approach are reported.