A Method of Visualizing Inter-Module Relations to Support Reuse-Based Embedded Software Development

The demand for embedded software is growing, and the number of development steps tends to increase with shorter period for development. It becomes inevitable to re-use existing software resources. However, if the configuration management of the existing software for reuse is not sufficient, it becomes hard to predict which modules in a system would be affected by the reused software modules. This may result in generating new bugs in the system. In this paper, we propose a method to accomplish the effective reuse of software modules by managing dependency information among modules. The method analyzes mutual relations among existing modules and visually presents not only inter-module dependency but also a list of reusable modules based on the developer's demand. We evaluated the method by applying it to some actual developments.