Automatic Package Coupling and Cycle Minimization

Abstract—Object-oriented (OO) software is usually orga-nized into subsystems using the concepts of package or module. Such modular structure helps applications to evolve when facing new requirements. However, studies show that as soft-ware evolves to meet requirements and environment changes, modularization quality degrades. To help maintainers improve the quality of software modularization we have designed and implemented a heuristic search-based approach for automati-cally optimizing inter-package connectivity (i.e., dependencies). In this paper, we present our approach and its underlying techniques and algorithm. We show through a case study how it enables maintainers to optimize OO package structure of source code. Our optimization approach is based on Simulated Annealing technique. Keywords-Reverse engineering; Re-engineering; Software modularization; Search algorithm