Abstracting module views from source code

Abstract

We have investigated an approach for abstracting and visualizing software module views from source code: ArchView computes abstraction metrics that are used to filter and provide architectural elements and relationships of major interest. Source code views can, therefore, be reduced in detail and size resulting in more reasonable and comprehensible module views on software architectures. ArchView focuses on modules and their relationships: source level relationships such as inheritance, call structures, or includes are abstracted to a module level to show basic dependency relationships of modules.