Bug types fixed by API-migration: a case study

It is broadly known that adaptive maintenance improves software quality by making it accessing to new features and technology that may be included in the new version of an underlying API. This work presents a case study of six large C++ open source systems to investigate the role of API-migrations during bug-fixing activities. The case study involves mining the adaptive commits that were bug fixing revisions and then categorizing the relevant fixed bugs into a set of defined kinds. The study shows that only eight kinds covered 78.95% to 88.89% of the total fixed bugs in the examined systems. Also, the frequency of occurrence of each uncovered kind has been computed for each examined system. Correlation analysis results show that the uncovered kinds have very similar frequencies across all examined systems. Overall, the undertaken study illustrates the true benefits of an adaptive maintenance in the process of bug fixing.