Automated classification and retrieval of reusable software components

Abstract

The authors describe their research which improves software reuse by using an automated approach to semantically search for and retrieve reusable software components in large software component repositories and on the World Wide Web (WWW). Using automation and smart (semantic) techniques, their approach speeds up the search and retrieval of reusable software components, while retaining good accuracy, and therefore improves the affordability of software reuse.A program understanding of software components and natural language understanding of user queries was employed. Then the software component descriptions were compared by matching the resulting semantic representations of the user queries to the semantic representations of the software components to search for software components that best match the user queries.A proof of concept system was developed to test the authors' approach. The results of this proof of concept system were compared to human experts, and statistical analysis was performed on the collected experimental data. The results from these experiments demonstrate that this automated semantic-based approach for software reusable component classification and retrieval is successful when compared to the labor-intensive results from the experts, thus showing that this approach can significantly benefit software reuse classification and retrieval.

Improving program comprehension by combining code understanding with comment understanding

“…The additional constructs could make a fuller version of conceptual graph-matching useful. In this case, conceptual graph-matching techniques and conceptual graph-matching metrics similar to those of Yao et al [30] could be employed. Additional match metrics involving conceptual graphs are possible.…”

Fuzzy retrieval for software reuse

“…Component reuse should lead to faster development times and lower costs" (Gibb, McCartan, O'Donnell, Sweeney, & Leon, 2000, p. 212). With the increasing demands for software development and the inability of programmers to keep up, software reuse is a practice that can reduce development time and lead to increased stability of a system (Yao et al, 2008). Software reuse was first introduced as a way to minimize creation time and help build a more stable system with components that have been previously created and tested (Krueger, 1992).…”

“…It is well documented in the literature that in order for software to be reused, it has to be found. Current information retrieval algorithms are ineffective at finding quality software components in an efficient manner (Prieto-Diaz, 1991;Yao, Etzkorn, & Virani, 2008).…”

A two-stage framework for UML specification matching

“…One limitation inherent in this is that tagging is labor-intensive, because each component in the software library must be manually tagged with a description prior to retrieval, including such attributes as purpose, the objects upon which it depends, and a description of the capabilities of its methods [7]. Fig.…”