On the Inference of Configuration Structures from Source Code

We apply mathematical concept analysis to the problem of infering configuration structures from existing source code. Concept analysis has been developed by German mathematicians over the last years; it can be seen as a discrete analogon to Fourier analysis. Based on this theory, our tool will accept source code, where configuration-specific statements are controlled by the preprocessor. The algorithm will compute a so-called concept lattice, which - when visually displayed - allows remarkable insight into the structure and properties of possible configurations. The lattice not only displays fine-grained dependencies between configuration threads, but also visualizes the overall quality of configuration structures according to software engineering principles. The paper presents a short introduction to concept analysis, as well as experimental results on various programs.