Extension of a transformation system for maintenance: dealing with data-intensive programs

The paper, following the theme set out in a previous paper by K.H. Bennett et al. (see ibid., 1992) provides more results of the research programme on reverse engineering. It concentrates on dealing with data-intensive programs such as those written in COBOL. The problems with data-intensive programs are addressed, our solutions to these problems are discussed, a prototype built on our approach is described and the results of the experiments are presented. It is concluded that formal transformations provide a way of combining design decisions which have become instantiated in both the code and the data structures