Object-FMA based software code inspection approach

There are two disadvantages in the checklist used in traditional code inspection: there is no mapping mode from code to the defect record of checklist, and the defect modes in the checklist is incomplete which may result in omitting the code defects in code inspection. To resolve the above two problems, a new code inspection approach was presented by dividing the code into different levels and using failure modes analysis at different levers instead of the traditional checklist. Furthermore, an object failure modes analysis method (Object-FMA) was proposed to systematically analyze the failure modes of code objects and establish the failure modes database for code object in different levels. Finally, this Object-FMA approach was applied into the code inspection of military software. The results show that the proposed approach can provide a mapping mode from the code objects to the failure modes database, and improve the efficiency of the code inspection. The results also show that this Object-FMA approach can not only find the defects in the code lexical, syntax or semantic which can also be detected by traditional checklist, but also effectively find the defects caused by the negligence of developer or the algorithm error which may can't be detected by traditional checklist.