A toolset for program understanding

Abstract

Program understanding is associated with the hierarchy of abstractions and interpretations that are deduced from the code. Program understanding requires the identification and study of the numerous complex interrelationships that are induced by the data flow, calling, and functional dependencies that exist in the software. Therefore, an environment is needed in order aid the programmer in understanding software. The authors have previously discussed both an internal program representation and an environment that conforms to the requirements stated. The toolset is referred to as Ghinsu and it supports a number of tasks over a program written in a subset of ANSI C such as slicing, dicing, and ripple analysis. They present some background on the problems associated with program understanding and show how the Ghinsu toolset can aid the programmer in understanding software.<>