Analogical program synthesis from program components

Abstract

In this paper, we defined the notion of similarity between components, and presented a method for both selecting necessary program components and discovering vacant ones. To verify our concept, the prototype system called ‘APSS’ was constructed. In this system, we have already included some other similarities not presented in this paper. For example, we consider that a program component for retrieving the largest number from some numerical data set is similar to the one for retrieving the largest three numbers. These two components are similar since they are both containing a process which retrieves an element and compare it with all other elements in the same data set. This type of similarity can be defined using some mathematical definition of numerical elements. We will discuss these similarity relations in the forthcoming paper.