Enriching program comprehension for software reuse

The paper describes the process of code scavenging for reuse. In particular we consider enriching program comprehension for the identification and integration of reuse components by information abstraction and the use of graphical representations. The requirements of good reuse candidates are described, and then a description of a process of identifying and preparing for their reengineering into reuse units is given, In particular we describe two main activities: the identification of units; and the definition of the units user interface. Initially, the identification of reusable units applies some of the methods from RE² but is extended with the use of graph simplification procedures. The identification process is based on the calling structure of the code. Secondly, data analysis is performed on the identified reuse candidates. The data analysis process provides an indication of the potential use of the component and the effect required to make the candidate reusable. The paper provides examples and results from a number of case studies which have been used to evaluate this work. Our work relies heavily on there being communication between technical and non-technical staff. We achieve this through the use of graphical representation and thus results are displayed graphically where applicable