An Automated Approach for Supporting Software Reuse via Reverse Engineering

Formal approaches to software reuse rely heavily upon specification matchingcriterion, where a search query using formal specifications is used to search a library of components indexed by specifications. In previous investigations, we addressed the use of formal methods and component libraries to support software reuse and construction of software based on component specifications. A difficulty for all formal approaches to software reuse is the creation of the formal indices. We have developed an approach to reverse engineering that is based on the use of formal methods to derive formal specifications of existing programs. In this paper, we present an approach for combining software reverse engineering and software reuse to support populating specification libraries for the purposes of software reuse. In addition, we discuss the results of our initial investigations into the use of tools to support an entire process of populating and using a specification library to construct a software application.