Dynamic Analysis of Program Concepts in Java

Jeremy Singer and Chris Kirkham

Abstract

Concept assignment identifies units of source code that are functionally related, even if this is not apparent from a syntactic point of view. Until now, the results of concept assignment have only been used for static analysis, mostly of program source code. This paper investigates the possibility of using concept information as part of dynamic analysis of programs. There are two case studies involving (i) a small Java program used in a previous research study; (ii) a large Java virtual machine (the popular Jikes RVM system). These studies demonstrate the usefulness of concept information for dynamic approaches to profiling, debugging and comprehension. This paper also introduces the new idea of feedback-directed concept assignment.

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