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Studying the relationship between source code quality and mobile platform dependence

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Abstract

The recent meteoric rise in the use of smartphones and other mobile devices has led to a new class of software applications (i.e., mobile apps). One reason for this success is the extensive support available to mobile app developers through the APIs provided by mobile platforms (e.g., Android). In our previous research, we found that mobile apps tend to depend highly on these platform-specific APIs. High dependence on a particular mobile platform may introduce instability and defects, as these mobile platforms are rapidly evolving. Therefore, the extent of platform dependence may be an indicator of software quality. In this paper, we examine the relationship between platform dependence and defect proneness of the source code files of an Android app to determine whether software metrics based on platform dependence can be used to prioritize software quality assurance efforts. We find that (1) source code files that are defect prone have a higher dependence on the platform than defect-free files and (2) increasing the platform dependence increases the likelihood of a defect being present in a source code file. Thus, platform dependence may be used to prioritize the most defect-prone source code files for code reviews and unit testing by the software quality assurance team.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Analysis and Intelligence Lab (SAIL) School of Computing, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada

    Mark D. Syer, Meiyappan Nagappan & Ahmed E. Hassan

  2. Lab on Maintenance, Construction and Intelligence of Software (MCIS), Département de Génie Informatique et Génie Logiciel, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montreal, Canada

    Bram Adams

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  1. Mark D. Syer
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  2. Meiyappan Nagappan
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  3. Bram Adams
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  4. Ahmed E. Hassan
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Correspondence to Mark D. Syer.

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Syer, M.D., Nagappan, M., Adams, B. et al. Studying the relationship between source code quality and mobile platform dependence. Software Qual J 23, 485–508 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-014-9238-2

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