Hwang Seog Hyeong , Yang Hae Sul , Hwang Yeong Seob

The KIPS Transactions:PartD, Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 859-872, Aug. 2003
10.3745/KIPSTD.2003.10.5.859,   PDF Download:

Abstract

Class hierarchies often constitute the backbone of object-oriented software. Their quality is therefore quite crucial. Building class hierarchies with good quality is a very important and common tasks on the object oriented software development, but such hierarchies are not so easy to build. Moreover, the class hierarchy structure under construction is frequently restructured and refined until it becomes suitable for the requirement on the iterative and incremental development lifecycle. Therefore, there has been renewal of interest in all methodologies and tools to assist the object oriented developers in this task. In this paper, we define a set of quantitative metrics which provide a way of capturing features of a rough estimation of complexity of class hierarchy structure. In addition to, we suggest a set of algorithms that transform a original class hierarchy structure into reorganized one based on the proposed metrics for class hierarchy structure. Furthermore, we also prove that each algorithm is 'object-preserving'. That is, we prove that the set of objects are never changed before and after applying the algorithm on a class hierarchy. The technique presented in this paper can be used as a guidelines of the construction, restructuring and refinement of class hierarchies. Moreover, the proposed set of algorithms based on metrics can be helpful for developers as an useful instrument for the object-oriented software development.

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