On Trace Object in Software Engineering

Traces play a fundamental role in knowledge discovery. Often they are a preliminary indispensable to any discovery by a prior accumulation of observational data. But if considerable attention is given to the realization of traces for specific studies, we attach little importance to the general process that leads ultimately to develop an object named trace, i.e. the way in which traces are designed.

Most of the formal approaches about traces are focused on properties of sets of traces, but they do not directly address the issues raised by the gradual construction of these sets, their evolution and manipulation.

This paper proposes a formal approach to the design of traces by exploring the relationship between their production and their use in the context of software engineering. It introduces a trace object and some of its properties, as well as some possible transformations during its development.

This article shows that this so depicted “trace object” can have a status of knowledge in its most noble meaning, and that it has all the qualities of the traces in their mostgeneral senses. It is suggested that the various concepts of trace used in very different contexts correspond more or less to some “trace object”.