Patent ID: 9727635
Date: 2017-08-08
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. A method of facilitating software code changes, the method comprising: receiving as input a user query specifying a search term; generating a ranked list of method program elements, each of the method program elements included in the ranked list containing an identifier matching at least part of the search term and serving as a seed for later navigation; navigating outward from each seed a defined number of call edges, each of the call edges corresponding to a call from one method program element to another method program element regardless of whether the method program elements which are navigated outward from each of the seeds contains an identifier matching any part of the search term, identifying paths from one of the seeds to another one of the seeds based on the outward navigation from each of the seeds; grouping the method program elements included in each of the paths into a corresponding connected call tree; identifying a seed at a beginning of each path, a seed at an end of each path, and any method program elements linked between the seeds at the beginning and end of each path; excluding from the connected call trees the method program elements discovered as part of the outward navigation which are not included in a path that begins with one of the seeds and ends with another one of the seeds, and retaining in the connected call trees the method program elements discovered as part of the outward navigation which are included in a retained path that begins with one of the seeds and ends with another one of the seeds regardless of whether all method program elements in the retained path contains an identifier matching any part of the search term; ranking the connected call trees to form a ranked list of connected call trees; and displaying the ranked list of connected call trees as a diagram.