Observations on the Connectedness between Requirements-to-Code Traces and Calling Relationships for Trace Validation
Authors:Achraf Ghabi and Alexander Egyed
Traces between requirements and code reveal where requirements are
implemented. Such traces are essential for code understanding and
change management. Unfortunately, the handling of traces is highly
error prone, in part due to the informal nature of requirements.
This paper discusses observations on the connectedness between
requirements-to-code traces and calling relationships within the
source code. These observations are based on the empirical
evaluation of four case study systems covering 150 KLOC and 59
sample requirements. We found that certain patterns of connectedness
have high or low
likelihoods of occurring. These patterns can thus be used to confirm
or reject existing traceability – hence they are useful for
validating requirements-to-code traces.