A Knowledge and Deduction Based Software Retrieval Tool

Abstract

Two approaches in automated software reuse and software retrieval can be recognized nowadays, which increase the efficiency of building large software systems. The first pragmatic one describes reusable components on a very abstract level with keywords, wheras the other approach tries to catch the detailed semantics of functions with formalisms based on mathematical and logical notation. For the first one, automated support exists, however, the coarse-grained description is not sufficient. The latter supports detailed descraption, but lacks in general automated support. We present some formal foundations of software retrieval and a related system which is able to handle all relevant properties (for retrieval) of software components. One of these is the semantics of a function which is specified in a pre and postcondition style using logical formulas. Within the retrieval process, which starts with a description of the intended software component, reasoning as done over all properties. The inference process encloses a classifier and an automated theorem prover, working on the logical formulae.