Grammarware comprises grammars and all grammar-dependent software, i.e., software artifacts that directly involve grammar knowledge. The term grammar is meant here in the widest sense to include XML schemas, syntax definitions, interface descriptions, APIs, and interaction protocols. The most obvious examples of grammar-dependent software are document processors, parsers, import/export functionality, and generative programming tools. Even though grammarware is so omnipresent, it is somewhat neglected --- from an engineering point of view. We lay out an agenda that is meant to promote research on improving the quality of grammarware and on increasing the productivity of grammarware development.

The Asf+Sdf Meta-Environment is an interactive development environment for the automatic generation of interactive systems for constructing language de nitions and generating tools for them. Over the years, this system has been used in a variety of academic and commercial projects ranging from formal program manipulation to conversion of COBOL systems. Since the existing implementation of the Meta-Environment started exhibiting more and more characteristics of a legacy system, we decided to build a completely new, component-based, version. We demonstrate this new system and stress its open architecture.

We present an approach for the generation of components for a software renovation factory. These components are generated from a context-free grammar definition that recognizes the code that has to be renovated. We generate analysis and transformation components that can be instantiated with a specific transformation or analysis task. We apply our approach to COBOL and we discuss the construction of realistic software renovation components using our approach.

So-called little,ordomain-specific languages (DSLs), have the potential to make software maintenance simpler: domain-experts can directly use the DSL to make required routine modifications. On the negative side, however, more substantial changes may become more difficult: such changes may involve altering the domain-specific language. This will require compiler technology knowledge, which not every commercial enterprise has easily available. Based on experience taken from industrial practice, we discuss the role of DSLs in software maintenance, the dangers introduced by using them, and techniques for controlling the risks involved.

Meta programs manipulate structured representations, i.e., abstract syntax trees, of programs. The conceptual distance between the concrete syntax meta-programmers use to reason about programs and the notation for abstract syntax manipulation provided by general pur- pose (meta-) programming languages is too great for many applications. In this paper it is shown how the syntax definition formalism SDF can be employed to fit any meta-programming language with concrete syn- tax notation for composing and analyzing object programs. As a case study, the addition of concrete syntax to the program transformation language Stratego is presented. The approach is then generalized to arbitrary meta-languages.

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We proposed a new approach for the construction of grammars and parsers for existing languages. The approach is both very powerful and simple. We provided a structured process and explained our methods in detail so that others can apply our ideas for their own grammar construction activities. We illustrated the proposed approach with a nontrivial case study. Using our process, we constructed in a few weeks a complete and correct VS COBOL II grammar specification for IBM mainframes. We not only constructed a parser for it, but also published a web-enabled grammar specification so that others can use this result to conveniently construct their own grammar-based tools for VS COBOL II, or derivatives.

Tool builders dealing with many di#erent languages, and language designers require sophisticated pretty-print techniques to minimize the time needed for constructing and adapting pretty-printers. We combined new and existing pretty-print techniques in a generic pretty-printer that satisfies modern pretty-print requirements. Its features include language independence, customization, and incremental pretty-printer generation.

We argue that maintenance and reengineering tools need to have a thorough knowledge of the language that the code is written in. More specifically, for the family of COBOL languages we present a general method to define COBOL dialects that are based on the actual code that has to be reengineered or maintained. Subsequently, we give some typical examples of maintenance and reengineering tools that have been specified on top of such a COBOL grammar in order to show that our approach is useful and leads to accurate and relatively simple maintenance and reengineering tools. Categories and Subject Description: D.2.6 [Software Engineering]: Programming Environments---Interactive; D.2.7 [Software Engineering]: Distribution and Maintenance ---Restructuring; D.2.m [Software Engineering]: Miscellaneous---Rapid prototyping Additional Key Words and Phrases: Reengineering, System renovation, COBOL 1 Introduction There is a constant need for updating and renovating business-critical software sys...

We provide a strategy to restructure transaction processing systems. Such systems are core assets of most modern business operations, so their enhancement is crucial. Before large-scale renovation of transaction processing systems can take place, they need to be restructured. We argue that teleprocessing systems are unstructured by their nature. In this paper we approach the problems from a technical viewpoint and we report on the methods and tools that are necessary to bring structure in transaction systems.