Improving reverse‐engineering through the use of multiple knowledge sources

TLDR

Software maintenance tools have evolved from code analyzers to semi‑intelligent reverse‑engineering tools, yet relying solely on source code leads to over‑detailed models and poor linkage to documentation and user expertise. The study aims to create a coherent system model that connects business‑oriented user aspects with operational code by integrating code, documentation, and user expertise. The authors developed a prototype environment that supports building this model by incorporating multiple knowledge sources—source code, documents, and user expertise—into a unified system representation.

Abstract

Abstract With the growing awareness of the importance of software maintenance has come a re‐evaluation of software maintenance tools. Such tools range from source code analysers to semi‐intelligent tools which seek to reconstruct system designs and specification documents from source code. However, it is clear that relying solely upon source code as a basis for reverse‐engineering has many problems. These problems include poor abstraction, which leads to over‐detailed specification models and the inability to link other parts of a software system, such as documentation and user expertise, to the underlying code. This paper describes the work of the Esprit DOCKET project which has developed a prototype environment to support the development of a system model linking user‐oriented, business aspects of a system, to operational code using a variety of knowledge source inputs: code, documents and user expertise. The aim is to provide a coherent model to form the basis for system understanding and to support the software change and evolution process.