Saadeh, Emmad I.M.Kourie, Derrick G.2014-05-082014-05-082013Saadeh, EIM & Kourie, DG 2013, 'Refactoring with ordered collections of fine-grain transformations', International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 309-339.0218-1940 (print)1793-6403 (online)10.1142/S0218194013500095http://hdl.handle.net/2263/39743The objective of this paper is to explain the notion of fine-grain transformations (FGTs), showing how they can be used as prototypical building blocks for constructing refactorings of a design-level system description. FGT semantics are specified in terms of pre- and postconditions which, in turn, also determines the sequential dependency relationships between them. An algorithm is provided which uses sequential dependency relationships to convert an FGT-list to a set of so-called FGT-DAGs. It is shown how to compute the precondition of such ordered collections of FGTs. The paper introduces a new approach to deal with refactoring pre- and postconditions by defining them at two different levels. To give these concepts syntactical form, we rely on the Prolog formats used by an FGT-based refactoring prototype tool. An example is provided to illustrate the various concepts and to demonstrate that, because of their simplicity, well-defined pre-post semantics and their intuitive nature, FGTs provide a pragmatic basis for building refactorings.en© 2014 World Scientific Publishing Co. All rights reserved. A electronic version of Refactoring with ordered collections of fine-grain transformations was published in International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, vol.23, no. 3, pp. 309-339, 2013. doi : 10.1142/S0218194013500095. The original publication is available at : http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscinet/ijsekeFGT-based refactoringFGT-enabling preconditionRefactoringRefactoring-level precondition.Fine-grain transformations (FGTs)Postprint Article