Abstract

Software reuse is recognized to have the potential for improved productivity of quality software. Class reuse, micro-architecture reuse, and reuse of application frameworks are the three distinct levels of software reuse. This thesis examines the critical issues in providing support for different levels of reuse through formal specifications of reusable components. The formal specification language Larch/C++ has been used in reuse research projects and has been found to be adequate for specifying the behavior of class interfaces. We strengthen this claim by applying this methodology to several classes chosen from Rogue Wave library. We then provide extensions to the language for specifying object collaborations in a micro-architecture. We then illustrate this specification methodology for a micro-architecture chosen from a design pattern repository. In this context, we have also discussed the need to formally document design patterns and provided a formal framework within which design patterns can be formalized. Finally, we present the conceptual schema for a design pattern repository and discuss the query language features for storage and retrieval of design patterns.