Using analogy and formal methods for software reuse

Using formal specifications to represent software components facilitates the determination of reusability because they more precisely characterize the functionality of the software, and the well-defined syntax makes processing amenable to automation. The authors present an approach, based on formal methods, to the modification of reusable software components. From a two-tiered hierarchy of reusable software components, the candidate components that are analogous to the query specification are retrieved from the hierarchy. A retrieved component is compared to the query specification to determine what changes needed to be applied to the corresponding program component in order to make it satisfy the query specification