A METHOD FOR GENERATING PROGRAM SPECIFICATION FROM SOURCE PROGRAM - ANALYSIS BY TRANSFORMING PROGRAM STRUCTURE AND ARGUMENT MANIPULATION

This paper proposes a method of transformation analysis for the automa tic generation of program specification from the source program. The s ystem APSG/I (Automatic Program Specification Generator I), on which t he proposed method is implemented, is discussed. The transformation an alysis notes the similarity to the list-processing program of Prolog. By utilizing the framework of analogical reasoning, the specification for the given program is generated based on the typical list-processin g programs and its specification. When the program is inputted, the fo llowing two aspects are examined and the difference is determined by c omparison with the already defined typical program: (1) the structure specified by the existence of the command or the order of the executio n; and (2) the combination of arguments specified by the passing of da ta, etc. Then based on the determined difference, the already defined program specification is transformed, and the specification for the in putted program is generated. The specification generated by the propos ed transformation analysis has the following features: (1) the result is the natural language sentence, since the program specification and the transformation rule for the specification are defined by the natur al language; and (2) the format is unified and sufficient information to the details is contained.