Incremental Reflexion Analysis

Architecture conformance checking is implemented in many commercial and research tools. These tools typically implement the reflex ion analysis originally proposed by Murphy and Not kin. This analysis allows for structural validation of an architecture model against a source model connected by a mapping from source entities onto architecture entities. Given this mapping, the reflex ion analysis computes the discrepancies between the architecture model and source model automatically. The mapping process is usually highly interactive and the most time-consuming activity in the reflex ion analysis. In current tools, the reflex ion analysis must be repeated completely whenever the underlying source or architecture models or the mapping change. In large systems, the recomputation can hinder interactive use as a user expects an immediate response to his or her change. This paper describes an incremental reflex ion analysis that does not require a complete repetition of the reflex ion analysis. Instead, it repeats the analysis only for those parts that are influenced by a change. The incremental reflex ion analysis is evaluated on large real-world systems.