An experiment of legacy code segmentation to improve maintainability

An experiment with procedure oriented legacy code originally developed in C programming language and Xview graphical interface language is described. Its purpose is to segment the code to improve system maintainability. The segmentation is preceded by the legacy system reverse engineering according to an overall process called Fusion/RE. This process produces an object oriented system analysis model from procedure oriented legacy code. The segmentation is in fact a reengineering with change of orientation from procedural to object oriented preserving the system functionality and programming language. The segmentation process is described and its application to a real system case called StarSim, with 30000 lines of source code, that allows the edition and simulation of statecharts, is reported. Information about the improvement in maintainability is presented.