Optimizing Programs Using Call Graphs

Abstract

When working with complex software, visualization improves understanding considerably. Thus enhancing the ability of programmers to picture the relationships between components in a complex program not only saves time but becomes progressively mission- critical with increasing software complexity. Call Graph Generation Tool is a visualization tool which provides programmers different metrics to assess the software code. The different metrics include total n umber of lines in the function, total number of executable lines, number of unreachable lines, and cyclomatic complexity of the program. It provides a graphical representation of the function calls in a tree like structure. The tool accepts a „C‟ program and generates a funct ions call graph along with the functional metrics. The call graph generation tool provides both static and dynamic view. The whole programming is done using java technology. Thus, this tool helps the developer to know the program flow and thereby decide the optimality of the program. In situations where in, a single program is to be selected from available programs, this tool helps to figure out it. This paper depicts usage of call graph Generator to assess the reachability and exactness of the programs.