First Results in Supporting Automated Elaboration of Refactoring Plans

Current approaches to refactoring automation [1] are focused on finding and applying each individual transformation step. When decided which and where a refactoring opportunity exists, development tools are used to automatically apply the refactoring and test its effects. This kind of methodologies are directed to improve certain design characteristics. In some cases deeper redesigning is needed because wider architectural changes are planned. Other refactoring methodologies must be used. Refactorings must be directed to a full system new design proposal. Starting a framework based productline from legacy software systems is a good example of this. A sketch of a desirable system design can be obtained from a wide variety of techniques such as Formal Concept Analysis, metrics [2], or just the proposal of skilled software designers. This work assumes that this sketch of the desirable system design exists and explores how to check if the new design could be derived from the original system using an available set of defined refactorings. A small example is presented to show how the full transformation step sequence could be obtained in case it exists. The transformation sequence is understood as a chain of refactorings that builds up a "Refactoring Plan". This work aims to support the automation of this refactoring process which can be overviewed in Figure 1.