Designing an Interface for Effective Retrieval of Components

Abstract

Every software component is prepared for some specific purpose but there may be some specific features in it, which can be reused for some other purposes as well. The problem that is generally encountered while doing so, is the efficient search and retrieval of these components as they are not properly represented. So the basic task of the thesis is to identify the general challenges which are encountered while storing and retrieving the components, which have some reuse potential. In order to do so, the first requirement is a user friendly interface which provides for this and coming up with the best solution for reorganization of the components in the repository so that, there is maximum recall, coverage ratio and precision of the visited and retrieved software components. The basic aim is to develop software, which facilitates this and to provide for the maximum relevancy of the retrieved components such that, they can either be reused in the exact same manner or can be modified to do so. In order to introduce black box and white box reuse, the components have been divided into seven basic reuse categories and a provision for adding new categories has also been provided to the Administrator. The user can perform search, either based on these categories and sub categories or can do it on the basis of typing the keywords and signatures of the desired components or can select the component from the entire list of the displayed components. The basic comparison between the three techniques on the basis of precision, recall and coverage ratio gives the better way to do so among all three of them. Thus, the thesis deals with evaluating the best technique for retrieval of the software components for the purpose of reuse.