Functional Specifications of Object Oriented Systems: A Model Driven Framework

Organizations are highly dependent on their software in carrying out their daily activities. Unfortunately, the repeated changes that are applied to these systems make their evolution difficult. This evolution may be necessary to maintain the software, replace or upgrade it. In the case of complex and poorly documented legacy systems, modernization is the only feasible solution to achieving the evolution goals. The OMG (Object Management Group) consortium created the Architecture-Driven Modernization (ADM) initiative to cope with the challenges of modernization. This initiative proposes, among other things, modernization through model-driven engineering (MDE). In this context, the modernization of a legacy system, not developed in an MDE environment, begins with its migration towards this type of environment. This migration raises the problem of finding the models necessary for the use of MDE representing this system.In this paper, we present a new bimodal approach to ADM modernization by enabling automatic and interactive modes to discover a view of the implementation platform of a legacy object-oriented system. Also, we present the key ideas of the algorithms behind this discovery process. Finally, we describe our prototype tool that implements our approach. This tool has been validated on several systems written in C# and Java languages.

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Reverse Engineering of Object Oriented Systems to ALF

International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering ◽

10.1142/s0218194021500224 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 31 (05) ◽

pp. 745-774

Author(s):

Asad Nawaz ◽

Tauseef Rana ◽

Farooque Azam ◽

Muhammad Waseem Anwar

Keyword(s):

Reverse Engineering ◽

Object Oriented ◽

Vital Role ◽

Third Party ◽

Computer Application ◽

Model Driven ◽

And Behavior ◽

Object Oriented Systems ◽

Significant Size

In Model Driven Software Engineering (MDSE), Action Language for Foundational UML (ALF) is a new standard for specifying the structure and behavior of a system textually. To update/transform existing systems with respect to advance business needs and/or by the change in the dependent technology, this standard can play a vital role in reverse engineering a system for technology change. In this paper, using ALF, we propose a reverse engineering approach for transforming object oriented system. Our work is the first attempt to use ALF in reverse engineering. Using a case study (an ATM system) of significant size developed in C[Formula: see text], we validate the feasibility of our approach. In this paper, to support our approach by a computer application, we created a tool CPP2ALF; this tool converts the C[Formula: see text] code to srcML code by using a third party srcML-tool and then generates the ALF code by using the generated srcML code.

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