A Precise Characterization of Software Component Interfaces

摘要

Developing software systems according to the Component-based Software Development (CBSD) model has proven to be one of the prominent development approaches nowadays. However, integrating components to build a complete working system has always been considered as an obstacle that requires substantial effort and may considerably delay the development process. The lack of effective characterization of component interfaces that only focus on the functional characteristics and ignore the architectural characteristics of software components is the main cause of this difficulty. Therefore, this work provides a detailed characterization of software component interfaces in order to expose the implicit architectural characteristics that impact component integration.