Automated Software Component Recovery for Reuse

Abstract

Our study focuses on creating techniques and tools for constructing using reusable software and investigating strategies for generating such software. The general process of building utilizing reusable components consists of three stages: First, looking for and getting reusable parts according to partial requirements; second, figuring out how good those parts are for reuse; and third, maybe, modifying those parts to fit the current challenge [3, 16, 19]. This research provides an overview of several component retrieval strategies that have been created or are being investigated within the framework of SoftClass, an experimental CASE 
tool created at the University of Que’bec in Montre’al to investigate software reuse concerns [12, 15]. There are two main types of methods covered in this paper. The first is “traditional” keyword-based retrieval algorithms, which try to find a single component that meets the user’s needs. The second type is “component composers,” which look for combinations of components that could meet the user’s needs. Other researchers have shown success in accessing software components and other types of information using the keyword-based approaches mentioned in § 3. These methods have already been put into practice. The 
component composers mentioned in section 4 are still in the theoretical stage of development, while efforts to identify efficient implementations are ongoing. Finally, we go over some potential avenues for further studies.