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21st IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM'05)
A Category-theoretic Approach to Syntactic Software Merging
Budapest, Hungary
September 25-September 30
ISBN: 0-7695-2368-4
Nan Niu, University of Toronto
Steve Easterbrook, University of Toronto
Mehrdad Sabetzadeh, University of Toronto
Software merging is a common and essential activity during the lifespan of large-scale software systems. Traditional textual merge techniques are inadequate for detecting syntactic merge conflicts. In this paper, we propose a domain-independent approach for syntactic software merging that exploits the graph-based structure(s) of programs. We use morphisms between fuzzy graphs to capture the relationships between the structural elements of the programs to be merged, and apply a truth ordering lattice to express inconsistencies and evolutionary properties as we compute the merge. We demonstrate the approach with a three-way consolidation merge in a commercial software system; in particular, we show how analyzing merged call structures can help developers gain a better understanding and control of software evolution.
Citation:
Nan Niu, Steve Easterbrook, Mehrdad Sabetzadeh, "A Category-theoretic Approach to Syntactic Software Merging," icsm, pp.197-206, 21st IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM'05), 2005
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