Retrieval oriented description of software component

Component based software engineering can improve the quality of software,and reduce software development and maintenance costs. The description of software component is the foundation of component reuse and retrieval. A retrieval oriented description of software component is proposed. The description includes four sections: interface description, semantics description, property description and attached document. It is designed for being used in component repositories, as the description of components and the terms for retrieval. The description can simplify the retrieval of component syntax,improve the speed and recall of retrieval. It can explicitly describe the semantics of component and elements in interface, and also can describe the relation between them.