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 Language Server Protocol (LSP). We present our visualization approach and outline how we used the 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