research-article

XCoS: Explainable Code Search Based on Query Scoping and Knowledge Graph

Authors:

Zhenchang Xing,

Xiujie MengAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, Volume 32, Issue 6

Article No.: 140, Pages 1 - 28

https://doi.org/10.1145/3593800

Published: 29 September 2023 Publication History

Abstract

When searching code, developers may express additional constraints (e.g., functional constraints and nonfunctional constraints) on the implementations of desired functionalities in the queries. Existing code search tools treat the queries as a whole and ignore the different implications of different parts of the queries. Moreover, these tools usually return a ranked list of candidate code snippets without any explanations. Therefore, the developers often find it hard to choose the desired results and build confidence on them. In this article, we conduct a developer survey to better understand and address these issues and induct some insights from the survey results. Based on the insights, we propose XCoS, an explainable code search approach based on query scoping and knowledge graph. XCoS extracts a background knowledge graph from general knowledge bases like Wikidata and Wikipedia. Given a code search query, XCoS identifies different parts (i.e., functionalities, functional constraints, nonfunctional constraints) from it and use the expressions of functionalities and functional constraints to search the codebase. It then links both the query and the candidate code snippets to the concepts in the background knowledge graph and generates explanations based on the association paths between these two parts of concepts together with relevant descriptions. XCoS uses an interactive user interface that allows the user to better understand the associations between candidate code snippets and the query from different aspects and choose the desired results. Our evaluation shows that the quality of the extracted background knowledge and the concept linkings in codebase is generally high. Furthermore, the generated explanations are considered complete, concise, and readable, and the approach can help developers find the desired code snippets more accurately and confidently.

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Index Terms

XCoS: Explainable Code Search Based on Query Scoping and Knowledge Graph
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development techniques

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cover image ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology Volume 32, Issue 6

November 2023

949 pages

ISSN:1049-331X

EISSN:1557-7392

DOI:10.1145/3625557

Editor:
Mauro Pezzè
USI Università della Svizzera italiana and SIT Schaffhausen Institute of Technology, Switzerland

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Publication History

Published: 29 September 2023

Online AM: 22 April 2023

Accepted: 20 March 2023

Revised: 13 February 2023

Received: 20 May 2022

Published in TOSEM Volume 32, Issue 6

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2024.112245
Sun WFang CGe YHu YChen YZhang QGe XLiu YChen Z(2024)A Survey of Source Code Search: A 3-Dimensional PerspectiveACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/365634133:6(1-51)Online publication date: 28-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3656341
Du XLou YLiu MPeng XYang TChandra SBlincoe KTonella P(2023)KG4CraSolver: Recommending Crash Solutions via Knowledge GraphProceedings of the 31st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3611643.3616317(1242-1254)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3611643.3616317
Liu MYang YLou YPeng XZhou ZDu XYang TChandra SBlincoe KTonella P(2023)Recommending Analogical APIs via Knowledge Graph EmbeddingProceedings of the 31st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3611643.3616305(1496-1508)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2023
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Liu MYu SPeng XDu XYang TXu HZhang G(2023)Knowledge Graph based Explainable Question Retrieval for Programming Tasks2023 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME)10.1109/ICSME58846.2023.00023(123-135)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2023
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