Tool support for semi-automatic modularization of existing code bases

Abstract

Many component based systems and frameworks require the integration of external codes, for example, providing numerical functionalities. These numerical codes can be either sequential or parallelized, written in languages such as C, Fortran, Python, or Java. Frameworks provide support for workflow management, data management, using distributed computing resources, or a graphical user interface. Today, modern systems are based on Eclipse and OSGi or similar technologies. For many frameworks, tight integration of pre-existing or third-party code requires manual source code changes to add the specific component interfaces to such code. As this is error-prone and time consuming, especially when large code bases must be integrated, tool support for these steps becomes useful, or even necessary. Tool support for automatic integration of existing code (in different languages) comprises several sub-problems such as code analysis, code transformation, generation of wrapper code, generation of proper user interfaces, and others. In this paper, we focus on the aspect of modularization of existing Java OSGi workflow systems and present a new Eclipse-based tool which provides end-user support for the migration of previously unmodularized software into modules or components.