Method for Assessing Software Quality Using Source Code Analysis

Abstract

Software systems and products are widely used in our personal daily life, business activities, hospitals, aviation and many other fields. These software products should not only satisfy the requirements of their intended users but also should be able to compete with other similar software products available in the market. Assessment of software product quality can be achieved by analyzing and specifying the quality characteristics which is defined in software quality models and standards, based on the quality reports defined by the stakeholders. However, assessment of software quality is not an easy task and as time passes, the characteristic of new software systems and products will change. In this research, a quality assessment method is proposed based on the latest software quality standard ISO/IEC 25010. This method performs code analysis using two perspectives (structural and rule violation-based quality measure metrics) to analyse four quality characteristics (i.e., performance, security, maintainability and reliability). The code analysis process is done by extracting structural elements and tracking defects which prevent a software system to have good architectural and coding practices. An automated tool is developed to facilitate and support the code analysis and software quality assessment.