Dynamic Data-Flow Analysis With Dacite: Evaluating an Integrated Data-Flow Visualization Approach
Troost, Laura; Neugebauer, Jonathan; Kuchen, Herbert
Abstract
According to different studies, analyzing the data-flow coverage when testing programs is a highly effective approach to ensure software quality. However, there is a need for tools making an effective and comprehensible visualization of a program's data flow easily accessible. With Dacite, we intend to meet this need by visualizing data-flows of Java programs within multiple editing environments based on the \ac{LSP}. We present our visualization approach and outline how we used the \ac{LSP} for realizing the visualization. We evaluate Dacite based on a usability study giving insights in the effectiveness and comprehensibility of the data-flow visualization.
Keywords
Data-Flow Analysis; Bytecode Analysis; Java Instrumentation; Software Testing; Language Server Protocol; Usability Testing