Explaining Code Changes to Developers via Symbolic Execution

What is it about?

This research aims to develop a new tool to help software developers better understand changes made to software programs. When code is modified, it can sometimes cause unintended changes in how the program behaves. Existing tools can detect if behavior has changed, but don't provide enough context for developers to easily grasp what changed and why. The proposed approach uses advanced analysis techniques based on symbolic execution - a formal method for program analysis - to not only detect behavioral differences, but also describe those differences in more detail and explain them in a developer-friendly way through visualizations within coding environments. This enhanced information is expected to allow developers to more quickly comprehend code changes and decide if they are correct or need to be revised.

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Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Unlike existing code differencing tools that provide very limited information about behavioral changes, this approach aims to provide more detailed explanations of the changes and why they occurred, presented in an IDE to aid developer understanding.