On the precision and accuracy of impact analysis techniques

Several techniques and algorithms for impact analysis of software systems have been recently published in litera-ture. Most of them, however, are not practical enough to be applied in the software industry because, among other rea-sons, they produce too many false results (either positive or negative). In this paper, we propose and evaluate the use of two measures from information retrieval, namely preci-sion and recall, to help express and compare precision and accuracy of impact analysis techniques and algorithms. 1