Forward dynamic object-oriented program slicing

Abstract

Object-oriented programming has been considered a most promising method in program development and maintenance. An important feature of object-oriented programs (OOPs) is their reusability which can be achieved through the inheritance of classes or reusable components. We propose an algorithm to decompose OOPs with respect to some variables or objects of interest using the forward dynamic slicing technique. The algorithm recursively decomposes constructors and member functions with respect to the specified variables in a slicing criterion. It is an extension of the interprocedural program slicing algorithm by Song and Huynh (1998) which is based on the forward slicing technique by Korel and Yalamanchili (1994). The algorithm analyzes message passings and parameter passings and constructs dynamic object relationship diagrams (DORD). As results, the algorithm produces not only the statement level slice (called traditional slice), but also the DORD that shows the relationships among the objects with respect to the specified variables in a slicing criterion.