On the inference of configuration structures from source code
Maren Krone, Gregor Snelting · 1994
We apply mathematical concept analysis to the problem of infering configuration structures from existing source code. Concept analysis has been developed by German mathematicians over the last years; it can be seen as a discrete analogon to Fourier analysis. Based on this theory, our tool will accept source code, where configuration-specific statements are controlled by the preprocessor. The algorithm will compute a so-called concept lattice, which -- when visually displayed -- allows remarkable insight into the structure and properties of possible configurations. The lattice not only displays fine-grained dependencies between configuration threads, but also visualizes the overall quality of configuration structures according to software engineering principles. The paper presents a short introduction to concept analysis, as well as experimental results on various programs. 1 Introduction A simple and widely used technique for configuration management is the use of the C preprocessor. ...