Approximate Retrieval of Incomplete and Formal Specifications applied to horizontal reuse

A key problem in software reuse is the selection of appropriate components for satisfying a given requirement, this problem being more pronounced in horizontal reuse, that is, the reuse of software elements in different domains of applications. This paper describes how the ARIFS tool (Approximate Retrieval of Incomplete and Formal Specifications) provides a suitable reusing environment to classify, retrieve and adapt formal and incomplete requirements specifications. Both classification and retrieval tasks are based on functional similarities according to structural and semantic closeness. To this effect, we define four partial orderings among reusable components and different measures to quantify functional differences among them. By using these measures we are able to offer an approximate and efficient retrieval, without applying formal verification tasks, and to predict adaptation efforts to satisfy the required functional specification. This paper focus on structural similarities because of their flexibility to adapt requirements specifications from different domains.