Software evolution is a natural phenomenon due to the changing requirements. Understanding the program structure is a significant and complicated factor in maintaining and evolving the software when software lacks the appropriate design documents. Clustering software modules, as a reverse engineering method, can be used to create an abstract structural model of software. Clustering software modules is a method which decomposes software system modules into several clusters (subsystems) by using module dependency graph. Finding the best clustering for the modules of software is regarded as an NP-complete problem. The main purpose of this study is to develop a method for optimal clustering of software modules in such a way that dependent modules are grouped within a cluster. Software module clustering problem was designed as a hybrid/discrete optimization problem. In this paper, using ant colony optimization algorithm, we made an attempt to find a good clustering of software systems. Producing the high-quality clusters of software modules, generating more stable results compared with the previous heuristic methods and attaining higher convergence are the main merits of the proposed method over the previous methods.

中文翻译：

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一种利用蚁群优化算法对软件模块进行聚类的高效稳定方法

由于需求的变化，软件进化是一种自然现象。当软件缺乏适当的设计文档时，了解程序结构是维护和发展软件的一个重要而复杂的因素。聚类软件模块作为一种逆向工程方法，可用于创建软件的抽象结构模型。软件模块聚类是利用模块依赖图将软件系统模块分解为若干个集群（子系统）的方法。为软件模块寻找最佳聚类被认为是一个 NP 完全问题。本研究的主要目的是开发一种优化软件模块聚类的方法，将依赖模块分组在一个集群中。软件模块聚类问题被设计为混合/离散优化问题。在本文中，我们尝试使用蚁群优化算法来寻找一个好的软件系统聚类。产生高质量的软件模块集群，与以前的启发式方法相比，产生更稳定的结果并获得更高的收敛性是所提出的方法相对于以前的方法的主要优点。