Creation of views for reuse of software with different data representations

Software reuse is inhibited by the many different ways in which equivalent data can be represented. We describe methods by which views can be constructed semi-automatically to describe how application data types correspond to the abstract types that are used in numerical generic algorithms. Given such views, specialized versions of the generic algorithms that operate directly on the application data can be produced by compilation. This enables reuse of the generic algorithms for an application with minimal effort. Graphical user interfaces allow views to be specified easily and rapidly. Algorithms are presented for deriving, by symbolic algebra, equations that relate the variables used in the application data to the variables needed for the generic algorithms. Arbitrary application data structures are allowed. Units of measurement are converted as needed. These techniques allow reuse of a single version of a generic algorithm for a variety of possible data representations and programming languages. These techniques can also be applied in data conversion and in object-oriented, functional, and transformational programming.