Object Discovery from Design Abstraction of Legacy Systems

ion of Legacy Systems Margot Postema, and Heinz. W. Schmidt Department of Software Development Monash University 900 Dandenong Road Caulfield East, VIC 3145, Australia Email: fmargot, hwsg@insect.sd.monash.edu.au Keywords: reverse engineering, abstraction, legacy systems, domain knowledge Extremely large software systems which have been developed and maintained by many different people are termed legacy systems. These legacy systems were traditionally developed using methods such as structured analysis and design. Over time, maintenance has changed the original program structure and specifications. As is often the case, the specifications have not been maintained, and the current design and program understanding is lost. Reverse engineering of legacy systems aims at discovering design and specification of existing software programs. This difficult task can be assisted by CASE tools, but still requires human expertise and domain knowledge. With a technology shift from structured to ob..