DYNAMIC SLICING OF ASPECT-ORIENTED UML COMMUNICATION DIAGRAM

Abstract

Aspect-oriented Programming (AOP) is a recent programming paradigm that focuses on modular implementations of various crosscutting concerns. The typical features of AOP such as join-point, advice, introduction, aspects etc. make it difficult for applying slicing. Program slicing is a method to extort statements that are relevant to a particular variable. Program slicing, as initially defined by Weiser is based on static dataflow examination on the flow graph of the program. Program slicing has been applied in parallel processing, program debugging, program integration,program understanding , software testing and maintenance etc.In this paper, we proposed a technique for dynamic slicing of aspectoriented software based on the UML 2.0 Communication diagram. Here, we can use slicing at the architectural level to find the slicing of communication diagram at an earlier stage of software development. To represent the various unique features of AOP in UML diagrams is very difficult and complex in nature. For this purpose, we first draw the communication diagram for aspect-oriented program considering the classes, pointcuts, advices and aspects. Next, we have generated an intermediate representation from the communication diagram. Then, we proposed an edge marking dynamic slicing algorithm that traverses the intermediate representation and finds the slices for the communication diagram of the given problem scenario. The novelty in our approach is that we present the communication diagram for the aspect-oriented software. Also, we proposed an algorithm to find the slice from it. The advantage of using communication diagram is that it mainly focuses on the interaction between the objects involved in the problem scenario.