An Information Retrieval System for Reusable Software

Abstract The reuse of software components becomes increasingly important as the demand for cost-effective software rises. One of the problems in reusing software components is cataloging the components and then locating and retrieving them from a large collection. To ease the process of reusing software components, we have designed a cataloging scheme for reusable components based on their reusability-related attributes, and have implemented an information retrieval system for reusable software components using the SMART system operating under the UNIX operating system. We have addressed problems associated with cataloging and retrieval of software components rather than problems associated with the design of the software components.