JRET: A tool for the reconstruction of sequence diagrams from program executions
R. Voets · Research Repository (Delft University of Technology) · 2008
As opposed to static analysis, in which source code is inspected in order to in-crease program understanding, dynamic analysis concerns the actual execution of a program and the collection of runtime data. Several strategies to retrieve dynamic in-formation exist, including source code instrumentation and the use of a customized debugger. Since the execution of a program is traced, one will be provided with de-tailed information on important aspects such as polymorphism and late binding. This detailed information, however, comes at a price. A major drawback of dynamic anal-ysis is the vast amount of data produced. Visualization tools need to deal with this problem by, for example, applying certain abstractions in order for the information to become human-readable. In this research, we developed such a visualization tool that visualizes the execution of programs through sequence diagrams: JRET. We describe the strategy used, show how it attempts to tackle the aforementioned problem, and illustrate its contribution to program comprehension through a case study.