Method of comparing graph differencing algorithms for software differencing

Abstract

Software differencing is the process of identifying differences between two versions of software. Finding the differences is important for applications such as efficient testing, merging, and auditing. Software differencing reduces to the problem of graph differencing for which the most general case is intractable. Graph differencing is important in several fields and several notions of graph differences exist. In this paper we describe an experimental method for comparing graph differencing algorithms for software differencing, develop a new definition of graph difference for identifying the semantic differences in software and conjecture about the definitionpsilas relation to another mathematical definition, and finally use these in a comparative study of graph differencing algorithms.