RUDSEA: recommending updates of Dockerfiles via software environment analysis

Abstract

Dockerfiles are configuration files of docker images which package all dependencies of a software to enable convenient software deployment and porting. In other words, dockerfiles list all environment assumptions of a software application's build and / or execution, so they need to be frequently updated when the environment assumptions change during fast software evolution. In this paper, we propose RUDSEA, a novel approach to recommend updates of dockerfiles to developers based on analyzing changes on software environment assumptions and their impacts. Our evaluation on 1,199 real-world instruction updates shows that RUDSEA can recommend correct update locations for 78.5% of the updates, and correct code changes for 44.1% of the updates.