A Multi-objective Solution for Retrieving Class Diagrams

A problem related to software reuse is to locate and retrieve, from a repository, the most suitable model, such as the UML class diagram. The search space is generally huge, and several characteristics (objectives) need to be considered. Similar software engineering problems, which are dependent on different measures, have been efficiently solved by using multi-objective algorithms. Considering this fact, the goal of this paper is to introduce a multi-objective solution for retrieving class diagrams. This solution considers as objectives structural and semantic characteristics of models in a repository. Preliminary results with NSGA-II show that the solutions obtained by the multi-objective algorithm constitute better options to the developer than that ones based on simple GAs.