On Modeling Software Architecture Recovery as Graph Matching

This paper presents a graph matching model for the software architecture recovery problem. Because of their expressiveness, the graphs have been widely used for representing both the software system and its high-level view, known as the conceptual architecture. Modeling the recovery process as graph matching is an attempt to identify a sub-optimal transformation from a pattern graph, representing the high-level view of the system, onto a subgraph of the software system graph. A successful match yields a restructured system that conforms with the given graph pattern. A failed match indicates the points where the system violates specific constraints. The pattern graph generation and the incrementality of the recovery process are the important issues to be addressed. The approach is evaluated through case studies using a prototype toolkit that implements the proposed interactive recovery environment.