Research on Program Change Impact Analysis Methods Based on Software Networks

Aiming at the problem that the current program change impact analysis methods have coarse calculation granularity and without considering the actual situation of program change, results in overstating the impact propagation range and inability to quantify the degree of change impact, this paper proposes a program change impact analysis method based on the software network. Firstly, by combining the complex network theory to characterize the structural attributes and evolution patterns of software system, we abstract the software network morphology of system; Secondly, basing on the type of program change and the actual propagation of change impacts, two concepts of impact propagation decay rate and minimum threshold for impact marking are introduced to construct the simulation sub-model of impact propagation processes, enabling the analysis of the propagation range of program impacts; Thirdly, according to the structural properties of software network and the intrinsic attributes of nodes, the ripple degree simulation sub-model is constructed, and five quantization factors of the node's influenced degree are given to complete the quantitative assignment of the node's influenced degree; Finally, several open source software is used for application verification. Experimental results show that the proposed method aligns with reality in analyzing the propagation range of program change impacts, thus scientifically and reasonably reflecting the ripple effects of change impacts within the software system. At the same time, the method accurately and effectively quantifies the impact of program changes on other parts, thereby providing theoretical support for change impact analysis in software engineering.