Towards recovering and exploiting domain knowledge from C code: A case study on automotive software

Abstract

To create a software system, a lot of knowledge about the domain that it deals with is needed. This is particularly true for embedded control software, which is in close contact with physical machinery, relationships, and effects. In this paper, we investigate if and how this knowledge that was once built into the software can be recovered from the source code - and what it can be used for. We apply approaches from previous research to an engine control software and adapt it to our setting. In particular, we are constrained to pure C code with limited structure, whereas previous work has mainly dealt with object-oriented software. Despite these limiting conditions, our study shows promising results.