  |
|
|
|
The two widely referred sub-areas of reverse engineering are redocumentation and design recovery. In this article we will cover the first one, i.e., redocumentation while the topic of design recovery will be covered in the next article. Till now, you would have observed that I am giving a brief overview on different subsets and perspectives of reengineering. After briefly discussing the major sub-areas, I will then cover them in depth one after the other.
Redocumentation is the creation or revision of a semantically equivalent representation within the same relative abstraction level. The resulting forms of representation are usually considered alternate views (e.g., data flow, data structure, and control flow) intended for a human audience. Redocumentation is the simplest and oldest form of reverse engineering, and many consider it to be an unintrusive, weak form of restructuring. The "re" prefix implies that the intent is to recover documentation about the subject system that existed or should have existed. Redocumentation . . . . A Brief Description Redocumenting code is a transformation from code (and other documents and programmer knowledge) into new or updated documentation about code. Normally this documentation is textual (e.g., embedded comments), but it can be graphical as well. Software improvement by updating documentation (embedded comments, design, and specifications) is one of the old reengineering techniques. Redocumentation is important because maintainers tend to depend on good inline comments as guideposts to what code is doing. Some common tools used to perform redocumentation are pretty printers (which display a code listing in an improved form), diagram generators (which create diagrams directly from code, reflecting code flow or code structure), and cross-reference listing generators. A key goal of those tools is to provide easier ways to visualize relationships among program components so you can recognize and follow paths clearly. Go To Page: 1
The copyright of the article Redocumentation in Software Re-engineering is owned by Faisal Bin Bashir. Permission to republish Redocumentation in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
|
|
|
|
