Classification and retrieval of reusable components using semantic features

Automated assistance for software component reuse involves supporting retrieval, adaptation and verification of software components. The informality of feature-based software classification schemes is an impediment to formally verifying the reusability of a software component. The use of formal specifications to model and retrieve reusable components alleviates the informality, but the formal reasoning required for retrieval introduces questions of scalability. To provide scalability, current retrieval systems resort to syntactic classification at some level of abstraction, abandoning the semantic information provided by the specification. We propose a methodology that shifts the overhead of formal reasoning from the retrieval to the classification phase of reuse. Software components are classified using semantic features that are derived from their formal specification. Retrieval of functionally similar components can then be accomplished based on the stored feature sets. Formal verification can be applied to precisely determine the reusability of the set of similar components