Computing ripple effect for software maintenance

Recent software maintenance models have included impact analysis and accoun ting for ripple effect as one of their stages. This paper describes and exp lains the reformulation of Yau and Collofello's ripple-effect algorithm and its validity within the software-maintenance process. Completely automatic computation of ripple effect has until now proved troublesome; we show how our approximation algorithm helps to overcome this. Our Ripple Effect and Stability Tool (REST) which uses our approximated algorithm to compute ripp le effect for C programs, is described. Eleven C programs are used in an in itial investigation into whether our approximated algorithm can replace Yau and Collofello's original algorithm for the purpose of automatic computati on of ripple effect. The Pearson correlation coefficient for the two versio ns of the algorithm across the eleven programs shows a high correlation. Co pyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.