A survey and taxonomy of approaches for mining software repositories in the context of software evolution

  • Authors:

  • Huzefa Kagdi;Michael L. Collard;Jonathan I. Maletic

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, Kent State University, Kent, OH;Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Ashland University, Ashland, OH;Department of Computer Science, Kent State University, Kent, OH

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution: Research and Practice
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

A comprehensive literature survey on approaches for mining software repositories (MSR) in the context of software evolution is presented. In particular, this survey deals with those investigations that examine multiple versions of software artifacts or other temporal information. A taxonomy is derived from the analysis of this literature and presents the work via four dimensions: the type of software repositories mined (what), the purpose (why), the adopted/invented methodology used (how), and the evaluation method (quality). The taxonomy is demonstrated to be expressive (i.e., capable of representing a wide spectrum of MSR investigations) and effective (i.e., facilitates similarities and comparisons of MSR investigations). Lastly, a number of open research issues in MSR that require further investigation are identified.