Software Merge: Semantics of Combining Changes to Programs

Abstract

We present a language-independent semantic model of the process of combining changes to programs. This model extends the domains used in denotational semantics (complete partial orders) to Boolean algebras, and represents incompatible modifications as well as compatible extensions. The model is used to define the intended semantics of change merging operations on programs and to establish some general properties of software merging. We determine conditions under which changes to subprograms of a software system can be merged independently and illustrate cases where this is not possible. Software change merging, Semantics, Domains, Software maintenance.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 1993
Accession Number
ADA279657

Entities

People

  • Valdis A. Berzins

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Boolean Algebra
  • Computations
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Construction
  • Engineering
  • Language
  • Maintenance
  • Models
  • Notation
  • Parallel Computing
  • Parallel Processing
  • Programming Languages
  • Semantic Models
  • Software Development

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Computational Linguistics
  • Computer Science.