scholarly journals Detection of faults in database applications using static program analysis and data mining

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaiping Liu
2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaiping Liu ◽  
Hee Beng Kuan Tan ◽  
Xu Chen

Database is a major component of many software systems. This paper proposes a novel graph called the attribute dependency graph to reveal the dependencies between attributes in a database application and also the programs involved. The authors propose an approach to automatically extract the attribute dependency graph out of a database application from its source code through inter-procedural static program analysis. The extracted information is a straightforward indicator that benefits the maintenance process, particularly for impact analysis on the modifications in a database application. A tool has been developed to implement the proposed approach for PHP-based database applications. Case studies have also been conducted to demonstrate the use of our approach.


Author(s):  
Hee Beng Kuan Tan ◽  
Yuan Zhao

Today, many companies have to deal with problems in maintaining legacy database applications, which were developed on old database technology. These applications are getting harder and harder to maintain. Reengineering is an important means to address the problems and to upgrade the applications to newer technology (Hainaut, Englebert, Henrard, Hick, J.-M., & Roland, 1995). However, much of the design of legacy databases including data dependencies is buried in the transactions, which update the databases. They are not explicitly stated anywhere else. The recovery of data dependencies designed from transactions is essential to both the reengineering of database applications and frequently encountered maintenance tasks. Without an automated approach, the recovery is difficult and time-consuming. This issue is important in data mining, which entails mining the relationships between data from program source codes. However, until recently, no such approach was proposed in the literature.


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