Specification-based program slicing and its applications

More precise program slices could be obtained by considering the semantic r elations between variables of interest. In this paper, we present specifica tion-based slicing that allows a better decomposition of the program by tak ing a specification as its slicing criterion. A specification-based slice c onsists of a subset of program statements which preserve the behavior and t he correctness of the original program with respect to a specification give n by a pre-postcondition pair. Because specification-based slicing enables one to focus attention on only those program statements which realize the f unctional abstraction specified by the given specification. it can be widel y used in many software engineering areas. In order to investigate its poss ible applications, we show how specification-based slicing can improve the process for extracting reusable functions from existing programs and restru cturing complex programs for better maintainability. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scie nce B.V. All rights reserved.