• Programming language features that help:

  • static types (for easier and better analses)
  • a standard code format (since otherwise the coding format must be preserved by the refactoring tools.

• Compiler should expose:

  • parsing (retaining comments, layout, radix of constants etc).
  • tree building
  • prettyprinting
  • tree manipulation
  • source-to-source rewriting
  • attribute grammar evaluations ?
  • control flow analysis
  • data flow analysis
  • other program analses?

For instance the Ada Semantic Interface Specification (ASIS) can be used to build code restructuring tools, code browsing and navigation tools, coding style and standards compliance tools, cross-reference tools, data flow analysis tools, dependency tree analysis tools, design tools, document generation tools, invocation (call) tree analysis tools, language- sensitive editing and pretty-printing tools, language translation tools, quality assessment tools, reverse engineering tools, re- engineering tools, safety and security compliance tools, static correctness verifiers, tasking analysis tools, test-case generation and coverage analysis tools, and usage, quality, and complexity metrics tools. http://www.sigada.org/WG/asiswg/ASIS_FAQ.html