Formal methods for legacy systems.

dc.contributor.authorWard, Martin
dc.contributor.authorBennett, Keith H.
dc.date.accessioned2005-09-05T18:53:38Z
dc.date.available2005-09-05
dc.date.issued2005-09-05
dc.descriptionPaper dated January 6, 1995en
dc.description.abstractA method is described for obtaining useful information from legacy code. The approach uses formal proven program transformations, which preserve for refine the semantics of a construct while changing its form. The applicability of a transformation in a particular syntactic context is checked before application. By using an appropriate sequence of transformations, the extracted representation is guaranteed to be equivalent to the code. In this paper, we focus on the results of using this approach in the reverse engineering of medium scale, industrial software, written mostly in languages such as assembler and JOVIAL. Results from both benchmark algorithms and heavily modified, geriatric software are summarised. It is concluded that the approach is viable, for self-contained code, and that useful design information may be extracted from legacy systems at economic cost. We conclude that formal methods have an important practical role in the reverse engineering process.en
dc.description.sponsorshipPartly funded bu Alvey project SE-088, partly through a DTI/SERC and IBM UK Ltd. funded IEATP grant "From assembler to Z using formal transformations" and partly by SERC (Science and Engineering Research Council) project "A proof theory for program refinement and equivalence: extensions".en
dc.format.extent250472 bytes
dc.format.extent310861 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/postscript
dc.identifier.citationWard, M. and Bennett, K.H. (1995) Formal methods for legacy systems. Journal of Software Maintenance: Research and Practice, 7 (3), pp.203-219.
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1002/smr.4360070305
dc.identifier.otherIR/2005/18
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2086/41
dc.language.isoenen
dc.relation.ispartofseriesSTRLen
dc.relation.ispartofseries1995-6en
dc.researchgroupSoftware Technology Research Laboratory (STRL)
dc.subjectAlvey
dc.subjectDTI
dc.subjectSERC
dc.subjectIBM UK
dc.subjectIEATP
dc.titleFormal methods for legacy systems.en
dc.typeArticleen

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