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 design improvement oriented. If deeper redesigning is needed, for example when starting a framework based product-line from legacy software, refactorings must be directed to a full system new design proposal. Assuming that a sketch of the desirable system design exists, this work explores how to check if the new design could be derived from the original system using the 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.