InMap is an interactive and iterative information retrieval-based automated mapping algorithm that produces code-to-architecture mapping recommendations.In its original form, InMap requires an architect to provide feedback for each code-to-architecture mapping recommendation in a given set produced (complete feedback).However, architects may delay/ defer deciding on some of the mapping recommendations provided.This leads us to ask, how would InMap perform if only a subset of the recommendations provided (partial feedback) or only a single recommendation (real-time feedback) is reviewed by the architect?Through carefully designed mapping experiments, we show that an architect giving partial or real-time feedback does not harm the recall and precision of the recommendations produced by InMap.On the contrary, we observed from the results of the systems tested a net increase of 2-5% (depending on the approach).This shows that in addition to In-Map's original complete feedback approach, the two new approaches of collecting feedback presented in this paper, i.e. partial and real-time, create flexibility in how software architecture consistency checking tool developers may choose to collect mapping feedback and how architects may opt-to provide feedback, with no harm to the recall and precision of the results.

Reflexion Modelling is a successful method used in industry for Software Architectural Consistency Checking (SACC). However, it includes a mapping step that is manual and tedious, especially for large complex systems. Various studies have shown how to successfully automate the interactive mapping of the basic units of the software’s codebase, i.e. its classes, to its architecture modules. However, their inherent drawback is that the effort required by an architect to review the mapping recommendations produced, whether during the mapping occurs or at the end of mapping, can be considerable. Subsequent studies have attempted to reduce this effort by use of a hierarchical mapping approach. These studies have demonstrated a reduction in the review effort required by a software architect; however, the gain in effort reduction occurred at the price of a lower recall and precision than similar non-hierarchical mapping approaches. In this study, we present an integrated approach of automated code-to-architecture mapping that draws from hierarchical (package mapping) and non-hierarchical (class mapping) techniques to keep effort minimal for an architect with marginal loss in recall and precision. Using the harmonic mean of f1-scores and effort reduction, our results show that with our integrated approach, we could achieve 0.90 on average, compared to 0.87 for the other two methods.

Reflexion Modelling is a popular method used in industry for Software Architectural Consistency Checking (SACC). However, it involves a mapping step that is manual and tedious. There exist techniques and tools that attempt to automate mapping, yet they are either limited in their approach or they require an initial set of manually pre-mapped entities. This study proposes a novel technique, InMap, that improves the mapping process in reflexion modelling by both providing versatility and eliminating the constraint of needing a set of manually pre-mapped entities in order to automate mapping. Using a software’s architecture descriptions, InMap applies information retrieval concepts to the software’s source code to interactively provide mapping recommendations to an architect. For the six systems InMap was evaluated on, the recommendations it provided achieved an average recall of 0.97, and an average precision of 0.82. InMap also achieved higher, f1-scores in comparison to existing techniques that require premapping. This provides a basis for improving industry tools that use reflexion modelling or similar SACC methods.