Skip to main content
Article
Code search via topic-enriched dependence graph matching
18th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE 2011): Limerick, Ireland, 17-20 October: Proceedings
  • Shaowei WANG, Singapore Management University
  • David LO, Singapore Management University
  • Lingxiao JIANG, Singapore Management University
Publication Type
Conference Proceeding Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
10-2011
Abstract

Source code contains textual, structural, and semantic information, which can all be leveraged for effective search. Some studies have proposed semantic code search where users can specify query topics in a natural language. Other studies can search through system dependence graphs. In this paper, we propose a semantic dependence search engine that integrates both kinds of techniques and can retrieve code snippets based on expressive user queries describing both topics and dependencies. Users can specify their search targets in a free form format describing desired topics (i.e., high-level semantic or functionality of the target code); a specialized graph query language allows users to describe low-level data and control dependencies in code and thus helps to refine the queries described in the free format. Our empirical evaluation on a number of software maintenance tasks shows that our search engine can efficiently locate desired code fragments accurately.

Keywords
  • Code search,
  • dependence graphs,
  • topic modelling
ISBN
9781457719486
Identifier
10.1109/WCRE.2011.69
Publisher
IEEE Computer Society
City or Country
Los Alamitos, CA
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Additional URL
http://doi.org/10.1109/WCRE.2011.69
Citation Information
Shaowei WANG, David LO and Lingxiao JIANG. "Code search via topic-enriched dependence graph matching" 18th Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE 2011): Limerick, Ireland, 17-20 October: Proceedings (2011) p. 119 - 123
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/david_lo/70/