Source-code divergence diagnosis using constraints and cryptography

This paper presents a new technique that informs developers of potential architectural-type violations and non-compliance checking in their software system after changes in the source code. The violations identified by our technique not only concern broken calls/dependencies/inheritance or data-dependencies but also concern the dissatisfaction of some constraints which may be defined and imposed by OCL. The technique partitions the software system into small grain nodes and filters out nodes that have no role in dependency-based software architecture adherence and nodes that cannot jeopardize the validity of a function regarding OCL adherence. It thus presents a reduced version of the source code where additional developer-defined links may be established between entities (e.g., method to method) based on the developer's implicit knowledge of the architecture of the system. A change in, for example, an assignment expression would 1) single out the containing entity of the node(s) (e.g., method or class), and 2) issue an alert to all of the linked entities. To establish the link/call/chain, we suggest using an architecture consistency chain technology (inspired by blockchain).