Selecting software components with multiple interfaces

Component-based software development is gaining recognition as the key technology for the construction of high-quality, evolvable, large software systems in a timely and affordable manner. Component search and service matching have become two of the key issues involved in this process. However current proposals addressing these issues are based on the simplistic assumptions that components present only one interface with the services they offer. This work presents an extension of those approaches in which components may offer and require several interfaces, extending the traditional component "substitutability" operator. In addition, an algorithm for selecting COTS components with multiple interfaces from a repository in order to implement a given software architecture is presented.