Using PageRank Algorithm to Improve Coupling Metrics

Existing coupling metrics only use the number of methods invocations, and does not consider the weight of the methods. Thus, they cannot measure coupling metrics accurately. In this paper, we measure the weight of methods using PageRank algorithm, and propose a new approach to improve coupling metrics using the weight. We validate the proposed approach by applying them to several open source projects. And we measure several coupling metrics using existing approach and proposed approach. As a result, the correlation between change-proneness and improved coupling metrics were significantly higher than existing coupling metrics. Hence, our improved coupling metrics can more accurately measure software.