Abstract

A number of standalone tools are designed to help developers understand software systems. These tools operate at different levels of abstraction, from low level source code to software architectures. Although recent proposals have suggested how code-level frameworks can share information, little attention has been given to the problem of connecting software architecture level frameworks. In this paper, we describe the TAXForm exchange format for frameworks at the software architecture level. By defining mappings between TAXForm and formats that are used within existing frameworks, we show how TAXForm can be used as a "binding glue" to achieve interoperability between these frameworks without having to modify their internal structure.

Citations