FUNCTIONAL TRANSFORMATION——APPROACH TOAUTOMATING SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE
Chen Shaoqiang · 1997
Automated software maintenance means that some tools perform maintenance work automatically according to the maintenance requirements. Among all kinds of maintenance, functional transformation is the most important. It is associated with function recognition, functional transformation requirements' definition and function generation. These works' foundation is analyzing and modelling the concept of function. Nowadays the method of automating software maintenance is program transformation which requires a library of concept patterns and transformation rules according to which the accurate transformation is carried out. Unfortunately this method can not deal with the potentially various requirements. To solve this problem, the authors should clarify the general properties of the concept of function and thereby the functional structure of software and the relationship among the functionalities can be resolved. In this way, maintenance personnel can specify functional transformation requirements for various circumstances and work on a high level. This paper gives a definition of function and presents the form of function recognition and function constraints. The process of automated software maintenance and some emerged problems such as ripple effect are also presented.