Article

Software restructuring: implementing a code abstraction transformation

Author:

Jacques EloffAuthors Info & Claims

SAICSIT '02: Proceedings of the 2002 annual research conference of the South African institute of computer scientists and information technologists on Enablement through technology

Pages 83 - 92

Published: 16 September 2002 Publication History

Abstract

Software restructuring is a form of perfective maintenance that modifies the structure of a program's source code. Its goal is increased maintainability to better facilitate other maintenance activities, such as adding new functionality to, or correcting previously undetected errors within a software system. Changes to the structure are introduced through the application of transformations. Manually transforming the source code may introduce undesirable as well as undetectable changes in the system's behaviour. It is very difficult to ensure that manual restructuring preserves functionality and guaranteeing it is almost impossible. The problems associated with manual restructuring can be addressed by using a restructuring tool to automatically apply transformations. The majority of restructuring tools apply transformations by manipulating abstract program representations and specify the conditions of the transformation in terms of the representation structure. The context entity graph as program representation was developed to support specific language constructs, but can be adapted to support a variety of programming languages. The implementation of a code abstraction transformation in terms of this structure is examined and various improvements are also suggested.

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Cited By

Wu LFeng YYan HCho YWainwright RHaddad HShin SKoo Y(2007)Software reengineering with architecture decompositionProceedings of the 2007 ACM symposium on Applied computing10.1145/1244002.1244320(1489-1493)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1244002.1244320
Chen FHou T(2006)Instruction-coated translationACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1163566.116357441:8(29-33)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1163566.1163574

Index Terms

Software restructuring: implementing a code abstraction transformation
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software post-development issues
      1. Software reverse engineering

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Reviews

Reviewer: Timothy R. Hopkins

The implementation of a software transformation tool that allows the safe replacement of a chosen sequence of statements by a procedure is described in this paper. Such modifications are claimed to be useful during the maintenance phase of the software life cycle. The algorithm for performing this transformation is based on the context entity graph, which is described in some detail. The tool has been developed for the Oberon programming language, although the author claims that the techniques described could be extended to Java and C++. Online Computing Reviews Service

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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

SAICSIT '02: Proceedings of the 2002 annual research conference of the South African institute of computer scientists and information technologists on Enablement through technology

September 2002

540 pages

ISBN:1581135963

Conference Chair:
Paula Kotzé
University of South Africa
,
Program Chairs:
Lucas Venter
University of South Africa
,
John Barrow
University of South Africa

Sponsors

P E TECHNIKON
UNISA
NRF
Microsoft: Microsoft
ORACLE: ORACLE

Publisher

South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists

South Africa

Publication History

Published: 16 September 2002

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SAICSIT '02

Sponsor:

Microsoft
ORACLE

SAICSIT '02: Enablement through technology

September 16 - 18, 2002

Port Elizabeth, South Africa

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Overall Acceptance Rate 187 of 439 submissions, 43%

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Cited By

Wu LFeng YYan HCho YWainwright RHaddad HShin SKoo Y(2007)Software reengineering with architecture decompositionProceedings of the 2007 ACM symposium on Applied computing10.1145/1244002.1244320(1489-1493)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1244002.1244320
Chen FHou T(2006)Instruction-coated translationACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1163566.116357441:8(29-33)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1163566.1163574

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