The integration of information retrieval techniques within a software reuse environment

Abstract

This paper describes the development of an information retrieval (IR) model for the indexing, storage and retrieval of documents created in extensible mark-up language (XML). The application area is the software reuse environment, which involves a broader class of documents than can be processed by conventional IR systems. This includes design and analysis documents in unified modelling language (UML) notation, as well as textual format, source code and textual and source code component interface definitions. XML was selected because it is emerging as the key standard for the representation of structured documents on the World Wide Web (WWW) and incorporates methods for the representation of metadata. A model is described that is easily customisable, since it is based upon an extensible object-oriented framework. This allows the development of an IR architecture that can easily be adapted to cope with the proliferation of XML document type definitions (DTDs) that is likely to be a characteristic of the WWW in the near future.University of Strathclyde. This paper begins by highlighting the importance of software reuse and then describes the broad structure and function of the AUTOSOFT system. Some of the key technologies underpinning the project are then outlined, with a particular focus on extensible mark-up language (XML) and its relevance to AUTOSOFT. This is followed by a discussion of the object-oriented framework that has been selected to support the development 50 1 2

Fuzzy retrieval for software reuse

“…“Those components that have already been tested provide higher guarantees of robustness and reliability in any future implementation, and 2. Component reuse should lead to faster development times and lower costs” (Gibb, McCartan, O'Donnell, Sweeney, & Leon, , 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., ).…”

Extracting term units and fact units from existing databases using the Knowledge Discovery Metamodel

“…Numerous methods use information retrieval (IR) to link the source code with the available documentation of the system. Gibb et al [17] present a method and a tool named AUTOSOFT that is intended to facilitate the reuse of software components by exploiting information from various artefacts created at different phases of a software development project. These artefacts include requirements and design documentation, user manuals, test-cases and source code.…”

Searching Repositories of Web Application Models

“…Some approaches have addressed the problem of searching UML models. Early works exploited the XML format for indexing seamlessly UML models, text files, and other sources [11]. The work [13] stores UML artifacts in a central knowledge base, classifies them with WordNet terms and extracts relevant items exploiting WordNet classification and Case-Based Reasoning.…”