This project aims to raise the level of abstraction of the slicing criterion from the source code level to the domain level. The CONTRACTS project will make it possible to use a high level, domain-orientated criterion to automatically extract a fully executable subprogram. The subprogram may be syntactically, arbitrarily scattered throughout a large program. To achieve this, a new theory of slicing will be developed together with algorithms for slicing according to the new high level criteria. Radically changing the way in which slicing criteria are constructed will allow the user to have all the advantages of slicing --- the extraction of an executable subprogram --- together with a means of expressing the semantics to be extracted at a suitably high level of abstraction.

Dr Nicolas Gold, Prof Mark Harman