Patent ID: 7627855

Claim:
A significance evaluation system with a recording and storage medium, used to reuse software components, which evaluates significance of software components, the system comprising: similarity analysis means for determining similarity between a software component and another software component; cluster analysis means for clustering said software component and a similar software component together into a component group, said similar software component being said another software component that has been determined to be similar to said software component; inter-file relationship extraction means for extracting inter-file relationships, said inter-file relationships being relationships among said software component and said another software component; inter-component group relationship extraction means for extracting inter-component group relationships, said inter-component group relationships being relationships among said component group and another component group; relative significance calculation means for evaluating relative significance of said component group and said another component group, said inter-component group relationships being used to evaluate said relative significance; and means for conversion from the relative significance of said component group to an evaluated value of said software component, wherein said inter-file relationships are from the group consisting of inter-class inheritance, implementation of an abstract classes and interfaces, and calling of methods, and wherein said relative significance calculation means obtains the evaluated value by calculating an eigen vector with an eigen value λ=1 for a square matrix D made up of the distribution ratio d as an element.