A Case Study in Adding Ownership Domain Annotations

Abstract

A software system can be described using different architectural views including code views and run-time views. A code view describes class dependencies at compile time, whereas a run-time view describes the interactions between the different objects at runtime, i.e., the run-time structure. We conducted a case study in adding ownership domain annotations to a real, object-oriented Java system. We used static analysis to type check the added annotations, and to extract diagrams of the run-time structure of the system. We describe, using examples from the actual system, how the code was incrementally annotated to extract diagrams of the run-time structure. Such diagrams can be useful for developers by making explicit the communication between objects across run-time tiers. We also describe how the annotation-based approach can be used to refine the extracted diagrams to reflect the developers mental model of the system