JP2006209179A - Model difference detection tool - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a tool for detecting a change concerning contents between models as a difference in a model based development. <P>SOLUTION: The model difference detection tool that compares at least two models of which content is described by text, and detects the difference between them, comprises: a comparison part (12) for comparing two models to be compared text to text and detecting the difference; a storage part (15) for storing an attribute to be ignored; a judgement part (13) for judging whether the difference detected by the comparison part (12) relates to the attribute to be ignored which is stored in the storage part; and a difference display part (14) for showing the difference other than the difference judged as relating to the attribute to be ignored by the judgment part (13). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a model difference detection tool for detecting a difference between models describing specifications and functions by a diagram.

  As the system scale increases and the design specifications become complicated, the difficulty of system development and the lengthening of the development period have become problems. Model-based development has been advocated as a method to solve such problems, and has achieved great results. Model-based development differs from conventional code-based development in that development is centered on a model, and design specifications and functions are described by diagrams. Generally known models include UML (Unified / Modeling / Language) used in object-oriented design, and models that represent physical phenomena graphically (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  Even in model-based development, as with conventional code-based development, version management between files is performed to manage the change history, and the difference between the last created model and this created model is compared and changed. It is desirable to specify the location. Such management makes it possible to estimate the scale of change and to check whether all necessary specifications have been incorporated, thereby improving system development productivity.

  However, at present, there are some applications that do not provide a difference tool depending on the application that describes the model, and even if the difference tool is provided, there is a problem that it is recognized as a difference only by moving the display position of the model diagram. Moreover, the general-purpose version management tool is assumed to be used in a code base, and only detects that there is a difference even though the model itself can be managed. Some models have their contents written in text. In that case, text comparison of differences can be performed using a general-purpose difference tool, but the comparison result cannot be represented graphically. In model-based development, if the comparison result cannot be displayed graphically, the user cannot use it effectively.

JP 2003-216428 A

  FIG. 1 shows an example of a model file 2 including a model block (hereinafter referred to as a block) 1 in which specifications and functions are described graphically, and a text file 3 in which the contents of the block 1 are described in text. FIG. 1 shows a screen of “Rose” which is application software of IBM Corporation together with FIGS. 2, 7 and 10 below. As shown in FIG. 1, when the contents of block 1 are described in text, it is possible to check the changed part between the models before and after the change using a general-purpose difference tool, that is, to detect the difference. It is.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 2, a model file 6 (b.mdl) including blocks 4 and 5 exists, and a model file 7 (c.mdl) is created by changing the model file 6 (b.mdl). The model file 7 includes blocks 4a and 5a. Although the block 4a is not different from the block 4 in the model file 6, the block 5a is not different from the block 5 but its display position is different. .

  When the difference between the two files is compared based on the text information, there is no difference between the blocks 4 and 4a, but a difference is detected between the blocks 5 and 5a. However, the difference relates to the display position on the display and does not involve substantial change of the contents. Therefore, when such a difference is detected, the user must consider what information the difference relates to, and the work becomes rather complicated.

  FIG. 3 shows a result of comparing the text information of blocks 5 and 5a with a general difference tool (the figure shows Microsoft's WinDiff). Since the blocks 5 and 5a are not different in content but have different display positions, different values are detected in the attribute “Location” regarding the display position as shown in the enlarged portion 8. As a result, although the content of the block 5a is not changed, the difference tool displays it as having a difference.

  The present invention has been made with respect to such a point of the prior art, and provides a new model difference detection tool capable of detecting only a meaningful difference as a figure in comparison between models described in text. The task is to do.

  It is another object of the present invention to provide a model difference detection tool that can reflect a detected difference on a model diagram.

  In order to solve the above problems, the model difference detection tool of the present invention compares two models in a text-to-text comparison to detect a difference, a storage unit that registers and stores attributes to be ignored, and a comparison A difference that is determined to be related to an attribute to be ignored stored in the storage unit and a difference other than the difference that is determined to be related to the attribute to be ignored by the determination unit The difference display part which displays is provided.

  The above-described difference detection tool of the present invention further includes an input unit for adding and deleting an ignore attribute to the storage unit.

  The comparison unit simultaneously acquires position information on the text data file structure of the difference together with detection of the difference, and the difference display unit displays this position information together with the detected difference.

  In this case, the difference display unit creates a copy file by copying at least one of the two models to be compared, and reflects the difference information based on the position information on the created copy file. The difference information is reflected by highlighting the model block, such as highlighting, blinking, or changing color attributes.

  The attributes to be ignored in the present invention are attributes relating to display including display position information, display color information, and font information.

  According to the model difference detection tool of the present invention, attributes relating to, for example, display position information, display color information, and font information, which are not related to the contents of the diagram, are registered in advance in the storage unit as ignored attributes. Therefore, by comparing the difference detected between the models to be compared with this registration information, the difference related to the ignore attribute can be automatically excluded. As a result, meaningful inter-model difference detection is easily performed. Such difference detection facilitates system productivity measurement, model designer version management, checking whether all specifications have been incorporated, etc., and improves system development efficiency.

  In addition, by allowing users to add and delete ignored attributes via the input unit, it is possible to deal with changes in attribute names due to application version upgrades, etc., and it can also support new model description languages. .

  Furthermore, when displaying the difference, the position information on the file in which the difference information exists is attached to the difference information, thereby facilitating the search for the difference.

  Furthermore, by copying the model to form a copy file and highlighting the portion determined to be the difference by means such as highlighting on the copy file, the user can easily recognize the difference portion. Thereby, the difference result can be used as a natural difference display between models without being conscious of the comparison of text information. Also, by displaying the difference using a temporary copy file, the difference display can be performed while safely holding the original file that should not be changed.

  FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the model difference detection tool 10 according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The model difference detection tool 10 includes a text information input unit 11 for inputting text information of two or more model diagrams to be compared, a comparison processing unit 12 for comparing the input text information, and a result of comparison. The figure determination processing unit 13 that determines whether or not the difference corresponds to the graphical difference and holds the result, the display processing unit 14 that displays the stored result, and the model position information, display color, font, etc. The non-schematic information holding unit 15 that holds the attribute to be ignored is provided. Further, an input unit 16 may be provided for enabling the contents held in the non-schematic information holding unit 15 to be deleted, changed, or added.

  When comparing diagrams between files, display information such as the display position, display color, and font of the model is not related to the meaning of the diagrams, and is therefore preferably ignored. In the non-schematic information holding unit 15, such attribute information that should be ignored is registered in advance in an external file or an external database in accordance with the model description language or application. The figure determination processing unit 13 determines whether or not the detected difference is related to the ignore attribute by referring to the content stored in the non-schematic information holding unit 15.

  The attributes that should normally be ignored depend on the application that provides the model description language or model diagram editor. Therefore, in order to perform effective comparison processing, it is necessary to set an attribute to be ignored for each model description language or application. In addition, attribute names may be changed due to version upgrades of applications.

  FIG. 5 shows an example of attribute name differences between applications. The display position information is indicated, for example, as “Position” in the application A and as “Location” in the application B. In addition, the comment is described as “Comment” in the application A, and is described as “Description” in the application B. Accordingly, the user can arbitrarily set the ignore attribute added or changed by the version upgrade of the application via the input unit 16. Alternatively, the ignore attribute may be stored in an external file or an external database, and “...

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the model difference detection tool 10 shown in FIG. The operation of the apparatus shown in FIG. 4 will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  First, in step S1, text information is input from a text file for two models to be compared, and a character string is detected. In step S2, the detected character strings are compared between models. If the character strings match (YES in step S2), there is no change, so the process returns to step S1 to detect the next character string. If the character strings compared in step S2 do not match (NO in step S2), since there is some difference between the models to be compared, it is determined in step S3 whether the difference is related to the ignore attribute. To do. This determination is made by referring to the contents registered in the non-schematic information holding unit 15 in FIG.

  If it is determined that the difference detected in step S3 is related to the ignore attribute (YES in step S3), the difference is ignored and the process returns to step S1 to detect the next character string. In the case of NO in step S3, the difference is considered to be a meaningful difference, so this is stored as a graphical difference (step S4). In step S5, it is determined whether or not all character strings have been detected. If all character strings have not been detected (NO in step S5), the process returns to step S1 to perform comparison processing for the next character string. If YES in step S5, the difference stored in step S6 is displayed and the process ends.

  In the apparatus shown in FIG. 4, the figure determination processing unit 13 determines whether or not the difference between the models to be compared is related to the ignore attribute, but this may be performed by the comparison processing unit 12. Is possible. When a general-purpose text comparison tool is used as the comparison processing unit 12, since this tool does not have a determination function regarding the ignore attribute, a determination function regarding the ignore attribute is added to the figure determination processing unit 13, and the determination is performed. There is a need. On the other hand, when a new tool is developed as the comparison processing unit 12, the processing unit 12 can be provided with a determination function related to the ignore attribute together with the comparison function. That is, it is possible to determine which of the processing unit 12 and the processing unit 13 performs the determination function regarding the ignore attribute depending on whether or not the comparison process is performed using a general-purpose text comparison tool.

  7-10 is a figure for demonstrating the structure and function of the display process part 14 shown in FIG. Consider a case where two model files 20 (a.mdl) and 30 (d.mdl) as shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B are compared. The comparison source file 20 includes two blocks 21 (block name test) and 22 (block name test 2). Similarly, the comparison target file 30 also includes two blocks 31 (block name test) and 33 (block name test 2). )including. In block 22 and block 32 to be compared, Property B is changed to Property C.

  FIGS. 7C and 7D are state transition diagrams showing the contents of MethodA () in blocks 21 and 31. In the comparison source block 21, the value of State A is 1, whereas in the comparison destination block 31, the value of State A is deleted, as shown in FIG.

  When two files as shown in FIG. 7 are compared with the difference detection tool according to the present invention shown in FIG. 4, PropertyB (attribute 1) in the block 22 of the comparison source file 20 is compared with the comparison destination in the comparison processing unit 12. It is understood that the value is changed to PropertyC (attribute 1) in the block 32 of the file 30 and the value 1 (attribute 1) in the block 21 of the comparison source file 20 is deleted at the comparison destination. When this difference is displayed as text in the display processing unit 14, the line-by-line difference information (a) shown in FIG. 8 is displayed. The figure determination processing unit 13 determines that the attribute 1 is not an ignored attribute.

  However, in the display of only the difference information shown in FIG. 8A, the user has to search where the difference is in the file, which is inconvenient. Therefore, in another embodiment of the present invention, the position information is added to the difference information and displayed as shown in FIG. As a result, the user can immediately understand where the difference is in the file, so that the utility value of the difference is high. This position information can be indicated as data hierarchy information.

  FIG. 9 shows a data structure in the text file of the model file 20. As shown in the figure, the data of the file 20 is described in a hierarchical structure. Therefore, when the difference information in FIG. 8 is displayed, the location information (b) (see FIG. 8) of the data storage destination is changed to, for example, By adding like test2 or / test / state / StateA, the difference can be displayed more clearly.

  Since the position information of the changed point is acquired by using the text file data structure, in another embodiment of the present invention, the position information is used to reflect the change on the model file to be compared. In this case, since the original file cannot be changed, the comparison destination model file is copied to create a new copy file, and the change information is reflected on the copy file. Reflection of change information is performed by highlighting or blinking a block in which a change exists or a block having some change in a layer below it.

  FIG. 10 shows the copy file 300 in which the changed block is highlighted. The copy file 300 is a copy of the comparison model file 30 shown in FIG. As is clear from the description in FIGS. 7 to 9, since the block 31 of the comparison target file 30 is changed from the comparison source file in the lower layer, the block 31 ′ is highlighted or blinked in the copy file 300. indicate. Further, in the copy 301 of the state transition diagram of Method A (), the changed portion is highlighted or blinked.

  In block 32, since PropertyC has been changed from the original property B, block 32 'is highlighted or blinked in the copy file 300 of FIG. As a result, the user can easily visually recognize the difference between the models.

  In the difference emphasis processing shown in FIG. 10, for example, in the case of a deleted block (for example, block 33) is red, in the case of an added block, it is blue, and in the case of a block 31 ′ in which the hierarchy below it is changed May be displayed in green. In this case, the deleted block does not exist in the comparison target model, but the color attribute is displayed as red on the copy file for the difference display. The copy file is not limited to the comparison destination file, and may be created by copying the comparison source file.

The figure which shows a model diagram and the text file which shows the content. The figure which shows the image of a model file change. The figure which shows the detection result by the conventional difference detection tool. The block diagram which shows schematic structure of the model difference detection tool concerning one Embodiment of this invention. The figure which shows the difference in the attribute name by an application. 5 is a flowchart for explaining the operation of the apparatus shown in FIG. FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the apparatus shown in FIG. 4. The figure which shows the example of a display concerning this invention. The figure which shows the data structure of a text file. The figure which shows the other example of a display concerning this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Model difference detection tool 11 Text information input part 12 Comparison processing part 13 Figure determination processing part 14 Display processing part 15 Non-schematic information holding part 16 Input means 20 Comparison source file 21, 22 Model block 30 Comparison destination file 31, 32 Model block 300 copy files

Claims (6)

A model difference detection tool that compares at least two models whose contents are described in text and detects the difference between the two models,
A comparison unit that compares the two models in text-to-text and detects a difference;
A storage for storing attributes to be ignored;
A determination unit that determines whether the difference detected by the comparison unit is related to an attribute to be ignored stored in the storage unit;
A model difference detection tool, comprising: a difference display unit that displays the detected difference other than the difference that is related to an attribute that should be ignored by the determination unit.   The model difference detection tool according to claim 1, further comprising an input unit for adding or deleting an ignore attribute to / from the storage unit.   The model difference detection tool according to claim 1, wherein the comparison unit simultaneously acquires position information on the text data file structure of the difference together with the detection of the difference, and the difference display unit displays the position information together with the difference. A model difference detection tool characterized by   The model difference detection tool according to claim 1, wherein the comparison unit simultaneously acquires position information of the difference on the text data file structure together with the detection of the difference, and the difference display unit displays the two models to be compared. A model difference detection tool, wherein a copy file is created by copying at least one of the above, and difference information based on the position information is reflected on the created copy file.   The model difference detection tool according to claim 4, wherein the difference information is reflected on the copy file by highlighting.   6. The model difference detection tool according to claim 1, wherein the attribute to be ignored is a display-related attribute including display position information, display color information, and font information. Difference detection tool.

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