Automatic Documentation Methodologies for Software Maintenance

Abstract

Given the non-trivial costs of software systems, it has become imperative to maintain software for a much longer period of time than was considered desirable in the past. Providing tools that will facilitate software maintenance helps to extend the useful lifetime of a software system. This report discusses a research project that was directed at providing a general- purpose, automatic documentation generator that could provide both the detailed and higher-level information that maintenance programmers perceive usefull. The project proceeded in three phases. The first phase consisted on an examination of the documentation methodologies currently available, and language requirements necessary to achieve these documentation methodologies. The second phase consisted of the development of the design for a documentation language which would be used as an intermediate representation in the documentation process. Finally, a research prototype was developed, in order to test the design and validate the research conclusions. Keywords: Maintenance programming.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 15, 1989
Accession Number
ADA205672

Entities

People

  • A. J. Fine
  • A. L. Gilbert
  • L. D. Landis
  • P. M. Hyland

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Application Software
  • C Programming Language
  • Compilers
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Grammars
  • High Level Languages
  • Linguistics
  • Military Research
  • Plastic Explosives
  • Programming Languages
  • Prototypes
  • Software Development
  • Specifications
  • Standards

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Computer Science.
  • Software Engineering
  • Theoretical Analysis.