Software comprehension is the process of gaining an understanding of how a software system functions. Since this requires drawing on information scattered throughout the source code, it is a time consuming and laborious task.

We offer a Framework for the analysis and visualisation of source code which is designed to promote the reuse of analysis and visualisation code across multiple programming languages. INSIGHT, the tool that we have developed based on this Framework, allows customers to:

• Create Heuristic Rules for Lexical Parsing
• Apply the Rules and Create the Repository
• Visualise the Lexically parsed code
• Create Traces and Flow Charts
• Create Transformation Rules
• Apply the Transformation Rules and Generate Destination Code

Our Framework brings the following benefits to customers:

• A set of tools to handle legacy code
• The ability to be configured for any legacy language
• The capability to generate reports to help knowledge transfer
• The ability to partially automate code migration
• The capability of being used as a data migration tool for decommissioning projects

Success stories

We have effectively used this tool in comprehending Legacy (Assembler) code while taking over the management of the Lifecomm (Policy Admin) platform for one of our large US based insurance customers, with only one Assembler resource on the team.