The Program Understanding Problem: Analysis and A Heuristic Approach

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The Program Understanding Problem: Analysis and A Heuristic Approach (1996)

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by Steven Woods

Venue:	In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Software Engineerig, ICSE-18
Citations:	30 - 4 self

BibTeX

@INPROCEEDINGS{Woods96theprogram,
    author = {Steven Woods},
    title = {The Program Understanding Problem: Analysis and A Heuristic Approach},
    booktitle = {In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Software Engineerig, ICSE-18},
    year = {1996},
    pages = {6--15},
    publisher = {IEEE Computer Society}
}

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Abstract

Program understanding is the process of making sense of a complex source code. This process has been considered as computationally dzficult and conceptually com-plex. So fac no formal complexity results have been pre-sented, and conceptual models difer from one researcher to the next. In this paper we formally prove that program under-standing is NP-hard. Furthermore, we show that even a much simpler subpmblem remains NP-hard. Howevec we do not despair by this result, but rathec offer an attractive problem-solving model for the program understand-ing problem. Our model is built on a framework for solv-ing Constraint Satisfaction Problems, or CSPS, which are known to have interesting heuristic solutions. Specijcall~ we can represent and heun”stically aaliress previous and new heuristic approaches to the program understanding problem with both existing and specially designed con-straint propagation and search algorithms. 1

Keyphrases

program understanding problem heuristic approach con-straint propagation attractive problem-solving model simpler subpmblem program understanding formal complexity result interesting heuristic solution program understand-ing problem new heuristic approach conceptual model search algorithm complex source code solv-ing constraint satisfaction problem

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