Source program processing method

A class-hierarchy reorganization method for reorganizing class hierarchy in a source program written in an object-oriented language on a computer, comprising extracting a group of class definitions having functionally-redundant code segments as a candidate for reorganization from the source program based on class group information on class definitions and comparison indices for class definitions in the source program, when a user indicates necessity for reorganizing class hierarchy, the extracting the group of class definitions including:

• comparing every two classes from the group of class definitions, thus obtaining a comparison index for the two classes;
• classifying the group of class definitions in a tree-like hierarchical structure, based on the group of class definitions and the comparison index for every two classes, the hierarchical structure having nodes each possessing three types of information which are the comparison index for every two classes, the number of children of each node and the number of leaves of each node;
• going down the tree-like hierarchical structure along the nodes from a top node to leaves of the structure while selecting a node as a child having the maximum number of leaves in each stage of hierarchy by referring to a predetermined reference level;
• and
• outputting the group of class definitions corresponding to leaves of a newly selected node as a candidate for class-definition reorganization when the number of leaves of the newly selected node is lower than the reference level or there is no node to be selected as the child.

A computer readable medium containing a program for processing a source program on a computer, the program comprising instructions for:

• dividing code of the source program into components and extracting a group of components;
• comparing every two components among the extracted group of components, thus obtaining a comparison index for the two components;
• classifying the extracted group of components in a tree-like hierarchical structure, based on the extracted group of components and the comparison index for every two components, the hierarchical structure having nodes each possessing three types of information which are the comparison index for every two components, the number of children of each node and the number of leaves of each node;
• retrieving two types of information, which are the comparison indices and at least one of the number of children of each node and the number of leaves of each node, on each node in the tree-like hierarchical structure and carrying out a specific computation based on the information;
• and
• quantitatively evaluating functional redundancy of the source program based on the total result of the specific computation for the nodes in the tree-like hierarchical structure.

A computer readable medium containing a program for reorganizing class hierarchy in a source program written in an object-oriented language on a computer, the program comprising instructions for extracting a group of class definitions having functionally-redundant code segments as a candidate for reorganization from the source program based on class group information on class definitions and comparison indices for class definitions in the source program, when a user indicates necessity for reorganizing class hierarchy, the extracting the group of class definitions including:

• comparing every two classes from the group of class definitions, thus obtaining a comparison index for the two classes;
• classifying the group of class definitions in a tree-like hierarchical structure, based on the group of class definitions and the comparison index for every two classes, the hierarchical structure having nodes each possessing three types of information which are the comparison index for every two classes, the number of children of each node and the number of leaves of each node;
• going down the tree-like hierarchical structure along the nodes from a top node to leaves of the structure while selecting a node as a child having the maximum number of leaves in each stage of hierarchy by referring to a predetermined reference level;
• and
• outputting the group of class definitions corresponding to leaves of a newly selected node as a candidate for class-definition reorganization when the number of leaves of the newly selected node is lower than the reference level or there is no node to be selected as the child.