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C e n t r u m v o o r W i s k u n d e e n I n f o r m a t i c a Software ENgineeringA language independent framework for context-sensitive formatting M.G.J. van den Brand, A.T. Kooiker, J.J. Vinju, N.P. Veerman A language independent framework for contextsensitive formatting ABSTRACT Automated formatting is an important technique for the software maintainer. It is either applied separately to improve the readability of source code, or as part of a source code transformation tool chain. In this paper we report on the application of generic tools for constructing formatters. In an industrial setting automated formatters need to be tailored to the requirements of the customer. The (legacy) programming language or dialect and the corporate formatting conventions are specific and non-negotiable. Can generic formatting tools deal with such unexpected requirements? Driven by an industrial case of nearly 80 thousand lines of Cobol code, several limitations in existing formatting technology have been addressed. We improved its flexibility by replacing a generative phase by a generic tool, and we added a little expressiveness to the formatting back end. Most importantly, we employed a multi-stage formatting framework that can cope with any kind of formatting convention using more computational power. REPORT SEN-R0601 JANUARY 2006 SEN Software Engineering ACM Computing Classification

As the use of software and electronics in modern products is omnipresent and continuously increasing, companies in the embedded systems industry face increasing complexity in controlling and enabling the evolution of their IT-intensive products. Traditionally, product configurations and their updates were managed separately for the hardware and software discipline. At specified release moments during the development of their products, the hardware and software were released together. But, as the usage, flexibility and complexity of software and electronics increases, and fierce competition requires shorter time-to-market and customizable products, more frequent releases of integrated hardware and software configurations becomes necessary. This evolution requires adequate configuration management both within the hard-and software disciplines and across them. In many organizations, software configuration management is more visibly established than hardware configuration management due to the inherent flexibility and complexity of software. But as the flexibility of hardware has increased through the use of configurable hardware, the need for more intense We propose a generic development cycle with real-life examples to illustrate the configuration management concepts. Then, from the sociotechnical design point of view, we raise awareness and argue that configuration management tools, processes, and its organization must be further aligned to support the complexity and interdisciplinary nature of the hardware/software boundary of evolving embedded systems.

We propose a lightweight, practical approach to check mass maintenance transformations. We present checks for both transformation tools and transformed source code, and illustrate them using examples of real-world transformations. Our approach is not a fully fledged, formal one but provides circumstantial evidence for transformation correctness, and has been applied to the mass maintenance of industrial Cobol systems.