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A demand-driven approach to slicing legacy COBOL systems.

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Title: A demand-driven approach to slicing legacy COBOL systems.
Authors: Hajnal, Ákos1, Forgács, István2
Source: Journal of Software: Evolution & Process. 2012, Vol. 24 Issue 1, p67-82. 16p.
Subjects: COBOL (Computer program language), Comprehension (Theory of knowledge), Graphic methods, Debugging, Algorithm software
Abstract: SUMMARY Maintenance of aging legacy COBOL systems is labor-intensive and is becoming a more and more difficult problem. Program slicing is a potentially useful analysis for aiding different maintenance activities, including program comprehension, reverse engineering, debugging, and testing. Numerous techniques have been proposed in the past decades; however, in interactive contexts, we found none of them suitable for slicing industrial-scale COBOL systems due to their large space or preprocessing requirements. This paper proposes a novel static program slicing approach, which is based on context-sensitive token propagation over control flow graphs (CFGs). CFGs require less space compared with program dependence graphs (PDGs) used by other techniques, and the token propagation method computes the necessary information only, on demand. Algorithms are presented for data flow and full slicing to calculate precise program slices. Preliminary application experiences on industrial-scale COBOL systems are also summarized. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Journal of Software: Evolution & Process is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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  Data: SUMMARY Maintenance of aging legacy COBOL systems is labor-intensive and is becoming a more and more difficult problem. Program slicing is a potentially useful analysis for aiding different maintenance activities, including program comprehension, reverse engineering, debugging, and testing. Numerous techniques have been proposed in the past decades; however, in interactive contexts, we found none of them suitable for slicing industrial-scale COBOL systems due to their large space or preprocessing requirements. This paper proposes a novel static program slicing approach, which is based on context-sensitive token propagation over control flow graphs (CFGs). CFGs require less space compared with program dependence graphs (PDGs) used by other techniques, and the token propagation method computes the necessary information only, on demand. Algorithms are presented for data flow and full slicing to calculate precise program slices. Preliminary application experiences on industrial-scale COBOL systems are also summarized. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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  Data: <i>Copyright of Journal of Software: Evolution & Process is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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