[comp.edu] Pascal program characterization wanted

dab@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Dave Bozak) (03/11/89)

In article <7525@pyr.gatech.EDU> gus@pyr.gatech.EDU (gus Baird) writes:
>Rats! Must be getting forgetful.
>
>Do you remember some programs we saw a few years back that would
>examine Pascal programs and come up with a characteristic?
.
.
.
>
>But I just can't seem to shake a citation out of my head. 
>Anybody remember offhand?
>Got one?

sure, but not offhand: Paul W. Oman and Curtis R. Cook presented a paper
at the recent Louisville (Loo-eh-vil) ACM-CSC conference titled
"Programming Style Authorship Analysis".  The paper in the proceedings
had lots of references (and I'd give 'em to you, but I don't have the
proceedings around ... maybe monday...)

-dave bozak
 dab@rocky.oswego.edu

shapiro@rb-dc1.UUCP (Mike Shapiro) (03/11/89)

In article <7525@pyr.gatech.EDU> gus@pyr.gatech.EDU (gus Baird) writes:
>Rats! Must be getting forgetful.
>
>Do you remember some programs we saw a few years back that would
>examine Pascal programs and come up with a characteristic?
>The (number? vector?) was computed from the number of variables,
>of statements, and so on, I think.
   ...
>But I just can't seem to shake a citation out of my head. 
>Anybody remember offhand?
>Got one?


This was one use of the counts for Halstead numbers.  References include:

Maurice H. Halstead
_Elements of Software Science_
Elsevier 1977

M.H. Halstead and Victor Schneider
"Self-Assessment Procedure VII"
_Communications of the ACM_
August 1980, Volume 23, number 8
pages 475-480
-- 

Michael Shapiro, Gould/General Systems Division
15378 Avenue of Science, San Diego, CA 92128
(619)485-0910    UUCP: ...sdcsvax!ncr-sd!rb-dc1!shapiro

dab@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Dave Bozak) (03/14/89)

In article <7525@pyr.gatech.EDU> gus@pyr.gatech.EDU (gus Baird) writes:
>Rats! Must be getting forgetful.
>
>Do you remember some programs we saw a few years back that would
>examine Pascal programs and come up with a characteristic?
>The (number? vector?) was computed from the number of variables,
>of statements, and so on, I think.
>
>These guys were rather useful for detecting students' copying
>assignments even if they changed variable names, shuffled code about,
>and did other relatively easy transformations.
>
>But I just can't seem to shake a citation out of my head. 
>Anybody remember offhand?
>Got one?
>-- 
>gus Baird
>School of ICS, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332
>...!{decvax,hplabs,linus,rutgers,seismo}!gatech!gitpyr!gus

some references from the Oman and Cook CSC talk titled "Programming
Style Authorship Analysis" are:

"Measurements of Program Similarity in Identical Task Environments"
Berghel & Sallach, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, v19(8), August, 1988, 65-76.

"Fingerprinting a Program"
Dakin & Higgins, DATAMATION, August, 1982, 133-144.

"A Plagiarism Detection System"
Donaldson, Lancaster, & Sposato, ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, February, 1981, 31-40.

"A Tool that Detects Plagiarism in Pascal Programs"
Grier, IEEE SOFTWARE, v2(4), February, 1981, 15-20.

"An Algorithmic Approach to the Detection and Prevention of Plagiarism"
Ottenstein, ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, December, 1976, 30-41.

and one I ran across that was very interesting, 

"Detecting Plagiarism in Student Pascal Programs"
Jankowitz, THE COMPUTER JOURNAL, v31(1), 1988, 1-8.

Hope these address your interests.

-dave bozak
 suny college at oswego
 dab@rocky.oswego.edu