An intelligent assistant for software information checking using a non-monotonic reasoning system

The knowledge representation of software component relations using nonmonotonic logic to assist the validity and integrity checking of software information is presented. Software components and their interconnection information are represented by axioms that exhibit the structure and behavior of the software system. Another set of axioms represents the basic truisms about a software system in general. These axioms can easily be extended to cover a wide variety of software systems architectures. In the software development and maintenance phases, information about the software system can be derived from these axioms using an automated reasoning system, and the software system itself can easily be checked against a specification of the system and compared for validity. This knowledge-based system will provide programmers with useful software information and assist the software development and maintenance process