Reverse Engineering and Abstraction of Legacy Systems
Margot Postema, Heinz W. Schmidt · 1998
ion of Legacy Systems Margot Postema, and Heinz W. Schmidt Department of Software Development Monash University 900 Dandenong Road Caulfield East, VIC 3145, Australia Email: fmargot, [email protected] Keywords: reverse engineering, legacy systems, transformation, abstraction Extremely large software systems which have been developed and maintained by many different people are termed legacy systems. These legacy systems were traditionally developed using methods such as structured analysis and design, or even individual programming techniques and styles. Over time, maintenance has changed the original program structure and specifications. However, usually the specifications have not been maintained, and the current design and program understanding is lost. Maintenance of these systems becomes so costly, that they become candidate for reengineering. Reverse engineering of legacy systems aims at discovering design and specification of existing software programs. The recovered...