Relationship between query interface and profiles in reuse support system

The main issue when designing a reuse support system is how to store and retrieve reusable components. The reusable component is typically stored in a library for later retrieval, accompanied by a profile (representation) for each component. A profile, which is a set of characterizing attributes, is created to enable operations on the component. These operations would be more difficult or impossible without using the profile. Retrieval of the component is actually performed by examining the profiles, not by examining software itself. Therefore, the query interface of the reuse support system is closely related to the profiles. The query interface is designed to take the functional and characteristic features of the required components and the profiles are supposed to be constructed with those features. In most existing systems however, the query interfaces are not designed to reflect the profiles of the library. These systems fail to give the reuser correct information of reusable components which is available in the library at the moment. The paper describes a design of query interface which is constructed from the profiles of the library. The design is based on a method which combines controlled and uncontrolled vocabulary methods