• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.612-628
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• 2001

This paper presents a methodology to extract classes and inheritance relations from procedural software. The methodology is based on the idea of generating all groups of class candidates, based on the combinatorial groups of object candidates, and their inheritance with all possible combinations and selecting a group of object candidates, and their inheritance with all possible combinations and selecting a group with the best or optimal combination of candidates with respect to the degree of relativity and similarity between class candidates in the group and classes in a domain model. The methodology has innovative features in class candidates in the group and classes in a domain model. The methodology has innovative features in class and inheritance extraction: a clustering method based on both static (attribute) and dynamic (method) clustering, the combinatorial cases of grouping class candidate cases based on abstraction, a signature similarity measurement for inheritance relations among n class candidates or m classes, two-dimensional similarity measurement for inheritance relations among n class candidates or m classes, two-dimensional similarity measurement, that is, the horizontal measurement for overall group similarity between n class candidates and m classes, and the vertical measurement for specific similarity between a set of classes in a group of class candidates and a set of classes with the same class hierarchy in a domain model, etc. This methodology provides reengineering experts with a comprehensive and integrated environment to select the best or optimal group of class candidates.