IDL: Evaluating software quality based on PageRank algorithm

In the traditional method, the software quality is measured by various metrics of the software, such as decoupling level(DL), which can be used to predict software defect. However, DL, which treats all the files equally, has not taken file importance into consideration. Therefore, a novel software quality metric, named as improved decoupling level(IDL), based on the importance of documents was proposed. First, the PageRank algorithm was used to calculate the importance of files to obtain the weights of the dependencies, and then defect prediction models was established by combining the software scale, dependencies, scores and software defects to assess the software quality. Compared to most existing module-based software quality evaluation methods, IDL has similar or even superior performance in the prediction of software quality. The results indicate that IDL measures the importance of each file in the software more accurately by combining the PageRank algorithm in DL, which indirectly reflects the quality of software by predicting the bug information in software and improves the accuracy of prediction result of software bug information.