SYNTACTIC INFORMATION USEFUL FOR SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE.

Software is an expensive asset, one which costs more to maintain than to acquire. The high cost of maintenance has been attributed to low programmer productivity in maintenance. This is due in part to the lack of tools existing within an integrated environment which address the full spectrum of maintenance activities. This paper addresses these concerns through the discussion of an ambitious research project to develop a Maintenance Engineering Environment (ME2). ME2 consists of three components: (1) a knowledge base, (2) an integrated toolset, and (3) maintenance personnel. Following a general discussion of ME2, this paper presents research results that identify the set of syntactic information needed to perform software maintenance activities. This information is critical to establishing the foundation of the maintenance-knowledge base in the ME2 project. The results also demonstrate the feasibility of evaluating source code for maintenance-specific information. (Author abstract. )