Maintaining large software systems

1
Maintaining large software systems

• Dr L Bottaci
• Department of Computer Science
• University of Hull, Hull, UK

2
Preface Module

• 20 Credits
• Syllabus topics
• Software maintenance practice
• Debugging
• Software maintenance management

3
Preface Resources

• Course Materials
• Check undergraduate web site for this module.
• Lecture slides
• Make your own notes
• Course notes
• ACW description
• Read notice board and email

4
Preface ACW

• Assessed course work
• Worth 100 of module assessment
• Software maintenance task
• Work individually
• Assessed on what you learn, as well as product
• ACW specification, on web page, will have details

5
Preface Assessment

• Assessing learning. In order of importance
• Evidence of learning in the logbook
• Student contribution to seminars and lab
  discussions
• Assessment of modified software
• Course is safe environment for sensible risk
  taking

6
Preface Reading

• Books
• Few books specifically on Maintenance
• See references in course notes
• Consult any good software engineering book, e.g.
• Pressman, Software Engineering, McGraw Hill, 2000

7
What is Software Maintenance?

• Software does not change
• But the operating environment and the world does.
• Fix bugs
• Adapt to new operating environment
• Adapt to new requirements

8
Maintenance as software engineering

• 50 (by cost) of maintenance is done to adapt to
  changed requirements
• 80 (by cost) of software engineering is software
  maintenance

9
Maintenance costs

• Cost of change increases with time after design
• Reduce cost by planning for long term maintenance
• Planning and designing for maintenance increases
  development cost
• Commercial requirements important, balance with
  engineering requirements

10
Syllabus topic 1 Software maintenance practice

• Software maintenance is not a theoretical subject
• Learning is change
• Learn by doing
• Learn by thinking

11
Practical exercise outcomes

• Learn what is required to maintain software.
• Learn how to improve ones knowledge and skill.
• Lazy practice makes permanent
• Goal directed practice makes better
• Motivation and self confidence.
• Requires a rational assessment of ones abilities

12
Maintenance task Brief intro

• Modify the jscript compiler (part of the .NET
  sscli) to implement new requirements.

13
Maintenance task overview

• Students given a short review of compiler
  operation, scanner, parser, code generator
• Role of abstract syntax tree
• No other information it is important that you
  learn

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Why use Rotor?

• Code large enough that it cannot be understood in
  its entirety
• Code contains very few comments
• Sufficiently readable for students to make
  progress in the relatively short time allocated
  for a module
• It is real code

15
Finding out about the system

• Look for information about systems of the type
  you are examining
• If it is an object-oriented compiler, look for
  information about object-oriented compilers.
• Do not overlook journal articles and books. There
  is a lag between ideas appearing in the
  literature and their take up in commercial
  products so it may be necessary to search the
  literature that was published several years
  before the system was built.

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Finding out about the system

• Look for documentation, in the source code files
  themselves or in associated documentation files.
  
• Check if the producer of the code has
  documentation in addition to whatever is in the
  distribution you are examining.
• Has anyone else worked or looked at the code, do
  they have documentation or information? Can they
  be contacted?

17
Finding out about the system

• Can static analysis tools be useful?
• Very simple and useful facility is the ability to
  search a set of files for a given string e.g. the
  grep tool in UNIX, find, findstr in Windows.
  Similar tool in VS Ctrl-Shft-F
• More sophisticated tools later

18
Finding out about the system

• Can automatic documentation tools be useful?
• E.g. it is often useful to know which functions
  call a given function. A complete description is
  known as the call graph.
• Other kinds of graph - class hierarchies.
• In general, automatic documentation tools produce
  cross referenced lists
• Example documentation tool is doxygen, available
  on the web.

19
Finding out about the system

• Ultimately, read the code.

20
Code reading skills

• Code reading should be goal-directed
• Reading to see what is there
• Trying to understand each line
• What are you expecting to find?
• Formulate an hypothesis
• Read the code to confirm or disprove it.

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Code reading illustration 1

• What is the following code doing?
• while (...)
• ...
• Hypothesise the most popular uses of a loop in
  general and look at code for evidence.

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Code reading illustration 2

• while (...)
• sum sum ai
• ...
• Array accumulation a likely hypothesis

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Code reading illustration 3

• while (...)
• sum sum ai
• if (...)
• ...
• else
• ...
• ...
• Hypotheses to explain the conditional inside a
  loop

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Code reading illustration 4

• while (...)
• sum sum ai
• if (...)
• done 1
• else
• ...
• ...
• Flag, is it for early termination?

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Code reading illustration 5

• while (i lt 9 and done 0)
• sum sum ai
• if (...)
• done 1
• else
• ...
• ...

26
Initial lab exercises 1

• Read the Rotor (sscli) documentation
• Download and build the system
• Try the jscript compiler.
• Find, compile and execute a sample jscript
  program
• Test the system, save the log file to compare
  with future tests.

27
Initial lab exercises 2

• Modify the jscript compiler to print a message
  before it compiles a file
• Rebuild compiler and recompile jscript sample.
• Rerun tests and check output with previous run of
  tests.

28
Further lab exercises

• Print each character in the file compiled by the
  jscript compiler.
• Print each token recognised by the jscript
  compiler.

29
Practical Exercise

• Control moves to next statement in program unless
  there is a conditional statement or transfer of
  control statement.
• Conditional statement is if-statement,
  switch-statement, while-statement and
  for-statement.
• Transfer of control statement is return, break,
  continue.
• Task is to modify the compiler so that it
  produces a warning when it detects that a
  statement is unreachable, i.e. cannot be
  executed.

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Practical Exercise E.g.

• for (i 0 i lt n i)
• x y
• break
• y 0

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Practical Exercise E.g.

• switch (e)
• case 1
• x 0
• break
• x 1
• case 2
• x 1
• break
• default
• x 2

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Practical Exercise E.g.

• if (true)
• x 0
• else
• x 1

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Practical Exercise stages

1. Continue and extend the examples given to produce
   a list of test cases.
2. Implementation plan with algorithm
3. When above two checked, proceed with
   implementation

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Example implementation plantextual substitution

• Read jscript program source code, as a file of
  text, looking for keywords such as return,
  break, etc.
• Identify statements in jscript program source
  code by looking for substrings terminating in a
  semicolon,

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Example implementation plantextual
substitution, evaluation

• Read jscript program source code, as a file of
  text, looking for keywords such as return,
  break, etc.
• jsscanner does this, plus point for plan
• Identify statements in jscript program source
  code by looking for substrings terminating in a
  semicolon,
• jsparser does this, plus point for plan

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Example implementation planexamine the MSIL

• Examine the MSIL produced by the jscript compiler
  to identify unreachable code.
• Could start by examining MISL for simple source
  code examples given above.

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Example implementation plantransform the AST

• Examine the AST produced by the jscript compiler
  to identify transfer of control statements, etc.

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Example implementation plantransform the AST,
evaluation

• Examine the AST produced by the jscript compiler
  to identify control transfer statements.
• Traverse AST looking for a type of AST node
• Need a foreach-stmt to iterate over AST

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Cost estimation individual

• Necessary and frequent activity, usually implicit
• In practical work, cost estimation should be
  explicit so that it can be scrutinised and
  improved.
• Calculate estimate, record in logbook
• When estimate expires, review estimate
• Note how it can be improved

40
Tools for navigating code

• Tools are available for extracting information
  from code.
• Most simple tools search files for strings, e.g.
  in VS Ctrl-Shft-F
• Most sophisticated tools called reverse
  engineering

41
Tools for navigating code

• Method call relationships for all methods is
  known as the call graph
• Can be constructed by a tool.
• Other graphs includes class hierarchies.
• The sort of documentation produced by automatic
  documentation tools consists largely of cross
  referenced lists.
• An example of such a documentation tool is
  doxygen, available on the web

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Tools for navigating code

• To answer more sophisticated queries, analysis of
  the program dependency graph is required.
• To use these tools it is necessary to understand
  the program dependency graph.
• The program dependency graph is actually a
  collection of graphs dealing with control and
  data dependency

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Example program

• 1. i 0
• 2. sum 0
• 3. done 0
• 4. while (i lt 9 and done 0)
• 5. sum sum ai
• 6. if (sum gt 8)
• 7. done 1
• else
• 8. i i 1
• 9. print(sum)

44
Control Flow

• The nodes of the graphs are the statements in a
  program or collections of statements known as
  regions.
• A region may correspond to a basic block.
• The conditional nodes of a control flow graph are
  distinguished (typically shown as squares) from
  the statement nodes (typically shown as ellipses)
  
• Directed edges are the possible transitions
  between statements or basic blocks during program
  execution.
• The conditional transitions are associated with a
  branch predicate (labelled T or F).
• There is a distinguished start node and a
  distinguished exit node.

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Control Dependency

• The control dependency graph is derived from the
  control flow graph.
• When node Y is control dependent on node X,
  taking one branch at X will ensure that Y is
  reached, Y may or may not be reached if the other
  branch is taken.
• As an example, consider nodes 4 and 5 in the
  control flow graph of previous program.

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Control Dependency example

• There is a path from node 4 to node 5.
• Taking the true branch at 4 ensures that 5 is
  reached. This is not true if the other branch it
  taken.
• Node 5 is said to be control dependent of node 4.
  
• In contrast, node 9 is not control dependent on
  node 4 since either branch at node 4 will always
  lead to node 9.

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Data Dependency

• Data dependency exists between two nodes if the
  meaning of the program may change when the order
  of the two nodes is reversed.
• Different kinds of data dependency.
• Flow dependency
• Def-order dependency

48
Flow Dependency

• Flow dependency exists from X to Y if
• a variable v is defined (the value of v is set)
  at X and used at Y, and
• there is a path in the control flow graph from X
  to Y without an intervening definition of v.
• In other words, the definition at X may directly
  determine the value of v at Y.

49
Def-order Dependency

• Def-order dependency exists from X to Y if
• both nodes define the same variable v,
• X and Y are in the same branch of any conditional
  that contains both X and Y,
• there is a node Z that is flow dependent on X and
  Y, and
• X is to the left of Y in the abstract syntax
  tree.

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Def-order Dependency example

• An example of def-order dependency is present
  between node 3 and node 7 in the previous example
  program

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Program slices

• A program slice is a subset of the statements in
  a program that are relevant to some criterion,
  usually the value of a variable at a given
  statement.
• This case is called a backward slice.
• The forward slice also useful, i.e. all the
  statements possibly affected by the value
  assigned at a particular statement.
• CodeSurfer from GrammaTech is a code analysis
  tool (C code only) based on the program
  dependency graph.
• The web site provides technical papers as well as
  an overview of the capabilities of the tool

52
Debugging

• It is much better to spend time when first
  writing code to ensure it is correct than to
  spend time debugging incorrect code.
• Many programmers think the opposite is true.

53
Software inspection exercise

• //REMOVE ELEMENT FROM a AT i2 IF i2 VALID
• //INSERT elem at i1 IN a IF i1 VALID
• //count IS LIMIT OF OCCUPIED PART OF a
• int i 0
• if (i1 gt 0 i1 lt count)
• for (i count i gt i1 i--)
• ai ai 1
• ai - 1 elem
• if (i2 gt 0 i2 lt count)
• for (i i2 i lt count i)
• ai ai 1

54
Software inspection exercise

• //ONLY THE FIRST count ELEMENTS OF ARRAY a ARE
  EVER OCCUPIED
• //WHEN count EQUALS THE LENGTH OF a NO MORE
  ELEMENTS MAY BE ADDED
• //INSERT elem INTO NONFULL ARRAY a AT indexIn
  PROVIDING indexIn lt count
• //REMOVE EXISTING ELEMENT FROM ARRAY a AT INDEX
  indexOut
• //OTHERWISE, a REMAINS UNCHANGED
• if (a.Length gt count indexIn gt 0 indexIn
  lt count) //INSERT
• int i 0
• for (i count i gt indexIn i--)
• ai ai 1
• aindexIn elem
• count count 1
• if (indexOut gt 0 indexOut lt count)
  //REMOVE
• int i 0
• for (i indexOut i lt count - 1 i)
• ai ai 1
• count count 1

55
Debugging

• Careful code design and debugging, are not of
  equal productivity cost.
• Over the long term, an extra day designing a
  program worth more than a day of debugging saved.
  
• Programmers expect to improve with experience.
• Experience in careful program design is more
  valuable than debugging experience.
• What is learnt during a day spent debugging is
  rarely applicable to another program.

56
Debugging

• Defensive programming is an effective way of
  avoiding debugging.
• Handle exceptions as close as possible to where
  they may occur.
• It is important to distinguish between
• a run-time condition that can and should be
  handled, e.g. an invalid input which may be
  cleared and read again, and
• a run-time condition that represents a failed
  pre-condition that invalidates the entire program
  so that recovery is not possible.
• An assertion can be used to test for a
  pre-condition at run-time
• Debug.Assert(n gt 0) //PROGRAM INVALID
• If true, no action occurs but if it fails while
  executing under the debugger, the program enters
  break mode

57
Debugging Assert()

• In C\, Assert method in the Debug class and
  Trace class
• To use Assert, the file must include the
  directives
• \define TRACE or
• \define DEBUG
• For efficiency, Debug methods not included in
  release version
• never put error handling code in a Debug
  assertion.

58
Debugging Assert()

• It is also essential that the code that computes
  the required assert condition does not produce
  side effects.
• It is not good programming practice for any
  condition to produce a side effect.
• Trace assertions are retained in release version.
  
• Assert takes up to three arguments.
• The first is mandatory and is the condition to
  check.
• The remaining two arguments are expressions that
  evaluate to strings that are printed when the
  condition fails

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Debugging Assert()

• As a rule, assert all the pre-conditions for the
  arguments of each non-trivial function or method.
  
• For each method, assert separate conditions
  separately so that when a condition fails it will
  be clear which it is.

60
Simple test harness

• DOS batch file run.bat
• DEL run.out
• DATE /T gtgt run.out
• TIME /T gtgt run.out
• for f in (
• file0
• file1
• ) do call runaux f

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Simple test harness

• DOS batch file runaux.bat
• set CLIXC\rotor\sscli20\binaries.x86chk.rotor
• set JSCC\rotor\sscli20\binaries.x86chk.rotor
• set PROGNAME1
• TYPE PROGNAME.js gtgt run.out
• CLIX JSC PROGNAME.js gt PROGNAME.out
• FC /L /N PROGNAME.out PROGNAME.rqd gtgt run.out
• REM DEL PROGNAME.out

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Software Maintenance management

• Any activity that consumes considerable resources
  requires good management.
• Maintenance planning should be done at the same
  time as the planning of the system development.

63
Software Maintenance management

• Maintenance plan should include
• the maintenance goals,
• maintenance management
• maintenance processes,
• hardware and software platforms, tools
• personnel, training
• and budget.

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Maintenance process models

• Any activity that is to be managed must first be
  described and understood.
• A life cycle model describes activities as phases
  in a process.

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Maintenance process models

• Taute maintenance model (1983, see notes)
• Request phase,
• the requested change is identified and logged.
• Identification includes a check that the request
  actually is a modification, that it has not
  already been submitted by some other user under a
  different id perhaps, etc.

66
Maintenance process models

• Estimate phase,
• how much will the change cost to implement?
• What are the implications of the change?
• Why is the change required?
• Is this change in the best interest of the
  supplier-customer relationship?
• What other changes are likely to be required?
• It is necessary for both the supplier and
  customer to have a clear idea of the aim of the
  system.

67
Maintenance process models

• Estimate phase requires detailed knowledge of the
  software system
• E.g. the following anecdote told by David Parnas.
  
• When code is to be rewritten there is the issue
  of whether to preserve long standing bugs or
  features.
• Consider the conversion of an old unstructured
  code fragment that displays the altimeter reading
  in an aircraft cockpit.

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Maintenance process models

• if not canread(alt1) goto l1
• display(alt1)
• goto l3
• l1 if not canread(alt2) goto l2
• display(alt2)
• goto l3
• l2 display(3000)
• l3

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Maintenance process models

• Convert to a modern structured code fragment
• if canread(alt1)
• display(alt1)
• else if canread(alt2)
• display(alt2)
• else display(3000)
• Is conversion correct?

70
Maintenance process models

• The 3000 value is displayed when neither
  altimeter can be read.
• Why was 3000 used?
• Should the 3000 be changed to error' or pull
  up'?
• Can the display show only digits?
• The importance, in software maintenance, of
  understanding the requirements should be obvious

71
Maintenance process models

• Schedule phase, when is the change to be
  implemented and released?
• Programming phase, new release version is created
  and code modified.
• Test phase, the new release is tested. This may
  require modifying or writing new tests.
• Documentation phase, existing documentation is
  modified.
• Release phase, new release given to some users
  for acceptance testing.
• Operational phase, new release delivered to all
  users.

72
Maintenance process models

• A more detailed model is the IEEE maintenance
  process model as described in the IEEE 1219-1998
  standard.
• Phases are similar to those in the Taute
  maintenance model but each phase is described in
  terms of four aspects.
• process (what is done),
• input to process,
• output of process,
• control (how is the process controlled and output
  checked?).

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Configuration management

• Configuration management is the administration of
  changes to a product and versions of a product.
• A product may be a plan, a specification, a
  design, some code, test data, etc.
• The configuration control board considers the
  various modification requests, their utility and
  estimated cost.
• These requests are considered in the light of the
  overall strategy for the system under maintenance.

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Configuration management

• Changes are made with respect to a baseline
  product or version.
• After a system has undergone a number of changes
  that, ideally, form a logically coherent unit,
  the system is said to be in a different version.
  
• The collection of changes that defines a version
  may, for example, be all those that allow the
  system to operate on a new platform.
• Sometimes the changes that define a new version
  have little in common and happen to be those
  changes ready at the scheduled six month release
  date.

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Configuration management

• It is important to know the construction history
  of the various versions, i.e.
• which version was modified to produce which
  version.
• Each change definition, i.e. each code change,
  must be accompanied with associated information,
• the author,
• the reason for the change (which should be
  traceable back to a modification of the
  requirements),
• the date,
• authorisation, etc.

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Configuration management

• If change only latest version then the
  derived-from relation produces a sequence of
  versions.
• This is the result, for example,of producing
  backups only.
• When some version earlier than the latest version
  is modified, a new branch of the tree is formed.
  
• In general, versions form a directed graph rather
  than a tree since different versions may merge.

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Configuration management

• A merged version contains the changes of both its
  parents.
• Clearly, if changes to the same line conflict
  then the user must resolve the conflict,
• the user chooses which change toaccept.
• Clearly, merging must be done with care.

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Configuration management

• A product is decomposed into modules, files or
  assemblies.
• Configuration management systems will allow
  changes to a version to be made on a module by
  module basis.
• Configuration management systems are essential
  when there are a number of programmers working on
  the same system.

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Configuration management

• To make a change to a file which is part of some
  version, the file is first checked out.
• Checking out a file ensures that whoever is
  requesting a file has permission to change that
  file.
• In this case the file is said to be locked.
• Different locking schemes are possible.
• pessimistic locking, single write permission but
  multiple readpermissions.
• Optimistic locking allows multiple write
  permissions and provides some mechanism for
  resolving overwrite clashes. For example, the
  first write may cause all other writers to be
  notified at which point there is the option to
  check out the updated file.