Restructuring Programs Through Program Slicing

Abstract

Software restructuring is recognized as a promising method to improve logical structure and understandability of a software system which is composed of modules with loosely-coupled elements. In this paper, we present methods of restructuring an ill-structured module at the software maintenance phase. The methods identify modules performing multiple functions and restructure such modules. For identifying the multi-function modules, the notion of the tightly-coupled module that performs a single specific function modules, the notion of the tightly-coupled module that performs a single specific function is formalized. This method utilizes information on data and control dependence, and applies program slicing to carry out the task of extracting the tightly-coupled modules from the multi-function module. The identified multi-function module is restructured into a number of functional strength modules or an informational strength module. The module strength is used as a criterion to decide how to restructure. The proposed methods can be readily automated and incorporated in a software tool.