LibVCS4j: A Java Library for Repository Mining

Abstract

Analyzing the evolution of software systems has become an emerging field of research. In the last couple of years, different studies investigated the evolution of various systems by utilizing version control systems and issue trackers. Due to the absence of suitable libraries, however, most of these studies implemented their own data extraction tools. This paper presents LibVCS4j, a Java programming library that tries to accommodate this shortcoming. The library integrates existing software to access repository routines, adds additional features for data analysis, and defines a common API to make subsequent analyses independent from particular repository systems.