Slicing object-oriented software

Abstract

Describes the construction of system dependence graphs for object-oriented software on which efficient slicing algorithms can be applied. We construct these system dependence graphs for individual classes, groups of interacting classes and complete object-oriented programs. For an incomplete system consisting of a single class or a number of interacting classes, we construct a procedure dependence graph that simulates all possible calls to public methods in the class. For a complete system, we construct a procedure dependence graph from the main program in the system. Using these system dependence graphs, we show how to compute slices for individual classes, groups of interacting classes and complete programs. One advantage of our approach is that the system dependence graphs can be constructed incrementally because representations of classes can be reused. Another advantage of our approach is that slices can be computed for incomplete object-oriented programs such as classes or class libraries. We present our results for C++, but our techniques can be applied to other statically typed object-oriented languages such as Ada-95.