A visual representation model for software subsystem decomposition

Decomposing a software system into subsystems is an important activity in the reverse engineering and maintenance domains. One approach to subsystem decomposition is based on data mining techniques. The ISA (Identification of Subsystems based on Associations) methodology decomposes a software system into subsystems by mining association rules from a database representation of the target system. This paper defines a visual representation model (RM) to graphically present the information produced by ISA. RM provides a graphical view of the recovered subsystem decomposition, the subsystems components, and the relationships among the subsystems. RM includes notation to represent hierarchies of file implications and hierarchies of subsystems. Results of applying RM to represent the subsystem decomposition of a COBOL system are discussed.