Identification of reusable software components should guide user to come up with information about candidate components when a proper component is not found. In this thesis we present a new component classification scheme to enhance the accuracy and power of the component identification. This scheme is basically a faceted scheme with the advantages of the traditional enumerative scheme added to feature a vertical view among components. Resuable software components represented in terms of Component Identifier and Component Descriptor are stored into a library according to the above classification scheme. A user who needs a software component queries the component library for a wanted component or a list of candidate components. Such a component identification procedure has been implemented as a mechanism and evaluated using the reusable software library which were constructed with the various programs of the Unix system according to the classification scheme.
