METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR EXTRACTING KNOWLEDGE FROM SOFTWARE CODE OR OTHER STRUCTURED DATA

摘要

A method for knowledge representation and management is disclosed which has particular but not exclusive application in knowledge recovery techniques. To help with program understanding, software maintainers use computer aided reverse engineering (CARE) tools which utilise techniques such as syntax analysis, structural analysis, and domain knowledge base analysis (DKBA). Known DKBA methods are complex since the domain knowledge recovery relies on the use of knowledge at different layers while some elements of the knowledge at domain level is not used at all. In the disclosed method for representing knowledge in a knowledge base, the knowledge is represented by a set of one or more concepts and by one or more first type of relationships between two or more or said concepts, the method comprises dividing the set of concepts into a plurality of sub-sets, each sub-set comprising a set of concepts related to a sub-set of the knowledge; dividing the relationships among the sub-sets of concepts; and providing a further set comprising all the concepts along with a second type of relationship that provides an association between each concept in the further set of concepts and one or more of the sub-sets of concepts and relationships.