Instance pointcuts for program comprehension
Christoph M. Bockisch, Kardelen Hatun · 2013
The dynamic behavior of programs generally cannot be fully observed via the source code, but dynamic tools, e.g. debuggers, have to be used. Comprehending dynamic behavior entails observing object interactions during runtime. The class structure is not always sufficient to understand these interactions since objects of the same type can be used in various places, just as objects of different types can be used in similar places. Our novel concept, instance pointcuts, groups objects based on the events they participate in, introducing a flexible way of creating object categories; a category contains objects that are used in the specified way. This paper proposes an application of instance pointcuts to the program comprehension domain. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach through three comprehension scenarios.