A DESCRIPTOR-BASED APPROACH TO OO CODE REUSE

The COOR environment (Classification of Object-Oriented Code for Reuse ) is based on an abstraction method that represents code behavior in t erms of software descriptors. Descriptors constitute a classification and retrieval unit and are constructed from source code and other docu mentation as lists of term pairs, called features, that describe compo nent functionalities. The protocol for efficiently extracting features from OO code interfaces assumes that methods have consistent and cohe rent names with respect to the concepts they represent. COOR extracts features from code semiautomatically, because it is not feasible to co mpletely automate the information-extraction process (the process of d eriving higher abstractions from lower ones). In our approach, a human expert, or application engineer, maintains the system for an audience of users, or application developers. COOR provides tools for the clas sification and search for reuse candidates. Our experience with COOR s uggests that descriptors can provide several advantages over class int erfaces. COOR descriptors support different levels of component classi fication granularity (like application frameworks rather than single c lasses). Moreover, in COOR, component behavior description is enhanced due to filtering out linguistic noise by means of a controlled vocabu lary.