Aplicação de métricas indiretas na ferramenta Refactoring and Measurement Tool (RMT)

Abstract

The Refactoring and Measurement Tool (RMT) is a semi-automated refactoring tool designed to identify improvement points in Java projects by applying design patterns based on metrics analysis: maintainability, reliability, and reusability. The RMT addresses few metrics related to quality attributes, which limits its evaluation concerning other attributes such as flexibility, security, and functionality. This work incorporated new indirect metrics into the RMT architecture in order to improve the evaluation process of object-oriented source code. The methodology for inserting the metrics involved reviewing the mathematical formulas of the possible metrics to be implemented in RMT, choosing appropriate tools to calculate the quality metrics, and conducting tests to present the results obtained by RMT. As a result, RMT evaluate additional quality metrics: flexibility, comprehensibility, functionality, extensibility, and effectiveness. This expanded the tool’s evaluation capability, providing users with a more comprehensive view of code quality. The tests conducted showed that RMT identifies classes with improvement points and the design patterns that can be applied to optimize the code. Thus, the tool aids in decision-making before applying refactoring.