Topological Structure Analysis of Software Using Complex Network Theory

Due to people’s increasing dependence on software, the emergence of software defects will lead to serious consequences. And the essential cause of software defects is the increasing complexity of software. The premise of reducing software defects is to understand the software topology to ensure software quality. The software topology refers to the connection between the internal elements of the software, and it has become an important factor affecting the quality of the software. In this paper, we use complex network theory as a tool to analyze the software topology. Firstly, we extract the software structural information from the source code of the software system and abstract the extracted software structural information with software network theory. Secondly, the metrics widely used in complex networks are introduced to analyze the built software network. When tracking the values of these metrics in the software system, we have a deeper understanding of the software topology. These results provide a different dimension to understanding the software topology, which has important guiding significance for the subsequent understanding of the software and is also very useful for reducing software defects and ensuring software quality.