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Unscrambling non‐sequential programs
Author(s) -
Finnie G. R.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.4380180106
Subject(s) - computer science , dependency (uml) , programming language , property (philosophy) , sequence (biology) , presentation (obstetrics) , cluster analysis , program code , code (set theory) , order (exchange) , natural language processing , dependency graph , software engineering , artificial intelligence , software , medicine , philosophy , set (abstract data type) , epistemology , radiology , biology , genetics , finance , economics
Certain types of computer language popular in areas such as decision support systems have the property that language statements need not be written in execution sequence, as the correct evaluation order can be established by dependency analysis. The uncontrolled use of these ‘nonsequential’ languages can lead to the development of programs and systems that are difficult to comprehend and maintain. This paper describes a method of clustering such code statements into sequential (procedural) modules to clarify visual presentation. The technique is based on depth‐first search of directed graphs and will group those statements which are most strongly related to each other into a module.