A Review of Software Architecture Metrics Extracted using UML

Abstract: Unified Modeling Language was introduced in late 90�s, since than software industries and practitioners have been adopting this language for detecting design deficiencies at the early stage in the design phase. UML has now become the de facto design document being used in the early design phase. It has gained wide popularity being able to systematically represent artifacts for software architecture. For Component Based Software Development (CBSD), metrics have been proposed by authors, for understanding complexity so that deficiencies in the design phase can be eliminated, which can cause problems in the later phases of the SDLC. A variety of tools has been proposed for extracting metrics, CAME tool has been proposed for extracting metrics for Software Component assembly from UML design documents. Components being black box in nature; interacts only through their interfaces. The complexity of these interactions can be studied through metrics. The XMI (XML Meta Data Interchange) standard is now part of the UML tools. Using XMI file, the component metrics can be extracted. This paper presents a systematic literature review of metrics extraction for CBSD using UML tool. This paper addresses the software architecture metrics which includes object oriented metrics as well as component based metrics extracted using design document UML. Keywords: Component Based Software Development, Component diagram, Component Assembly Metrics Extractor, Software metrics, Software Architecture, XMI.