Patent ID: 8499281

Claim:
A computer-implemented method to assess impact to an application resulting from changes to a database accessed by the application, the method comprising: identifying one or more database objects of the database modified by a proposed database change; for each identified database object, analyzing source code of the application to identify one or more portions of the source code which access the respective database object; generating a reference to each portion of source code which accesses one of the identified database objects, wherein each reference links one of the identified portions of source code to a corresponding database object modified by the proposed database change, wherein each reference includes a source code filename and line number that identify a line of code impacted by the proposed database change; organizing the references in a hierarchy by operation of one or more computer processors; and generating an output of the hierarchy of references, wherein the output conveys impact of the proposed database change on the application and allows a user to access a corresponding portion of source code by selecting one of the references, whereby impact of the proposed database change on the application is assessed without requiring the proposed database change to be applied.