The Role of the Version Control Information in Code Comprehension

Most software comprehension frameworks use the source code as the main resource for information retrieval. Advanced code comprehension process, however, requires the utilization of the full knowledge portfolio of the software system. In this paper we investigate how the version control information of the project can be utilized for extending our apprehension of large legacy systems providing a better understanding of the software under examination. We show that some of the hidden structural connections between the elements of the program can be revealed most easily by the development history of the system. A prototype implementation of the method using git version control information has been implemented as an open source extension of the CodeCompass software comprehension framework.