JPH04340130A - Documentation system for program information - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To efficiently execute the maintenance work of a computer program by expressing computer program information by a visually grasped format. CONSTITUTION:Formed program information stored in a storage device 103 is read out to a buffer 108. A program information analyzing means 109 executes the syntax analysis of the read program information, detects a key part in program control structure and a comment part describing program specifications and stores the detected parts in the storage device 111 as analytical information. A program information documenting means 107 forms program information in the buffer 108 as a document having a format capable of visually and easily judging the control structure or a comment while referring the analytical information stored in the means 111. The document is outputted to a display device 112 or a printer 113 through an output means 110.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to a program information creation device that enables program information to be output as a document as required, in order to improve the convenience of computer program maintenance work, etc. Regarding documentation methods.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Computer programs are written using words called source codes as their minimum constituent units. Further, a source code that is enumerated according to the syntax rules of a programming language such as COBOL or C is called a source program. A source program is created by an editing means called an editor, and the created source program is translated into machine language by a conversion means called a compiler.
It takes the form of an executable computer program. In this way, a computer program and a source program are equivalent, and a source program can be said to be the most realistic expression of the functions of a computer program.

[0003] In the creation and maintenance of computer programs, there are many cases in which existing source programs are looked at for reuse and understanding of specifications, and it is also necessary to understand their contents. However, source code is for describing the functions of a computer program, and is often expressed symbolically. Therefore, the source program that lists these programs is not necessarily in a format that is easy for workers to see and understand.

[0004] Conventionally, methods for solving such problems include writing annotations called comment information in the source program, emphasizing breaks by indenting the source program, and adding information to the source program. , SS (Structure Specific
ion) information (describing the specifications of a certain group of functional units such as input and output) has been described in the form of comment information, but no satisfactory effect has been achieved.

On the other hand, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 61-2481
As described in Publication No. 33, display attributes such as coloring and addition of ruled lines are given to arbitrary source code parts in a source program, and when the source program is displayed, the display attributes are reflected to make the source program easier to read. Some methods have been proposed to do this.

[0006]

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] An important point in computer program maintenance work is how to create a control structure rooted in the grammar rules of the programming language from among the program information, which includes source code, comment information, SS information, etc. The problem is how to find out the specifications of the entire program based on the SS information. Therefore, it can be said that truly readable program information is one whose control structure and specifications can be easily understood (visually).

[0007] However, the method of displaying arbitrary source code parts in a source program by coloring or adding ruled lines simply changes a part of the expression method of the source program, which is one of the components of program information. However, it only provides a marker for partially reading the source program, and it has not reached the point where it is possible to easily grasp the control structure and specifications of the entire program information.

Generally, what is called a book (document) is structured with information such as indentation, indentation of paragraphs, and footnotes, as well as the use of visually appealing expressions such as charts and emphasis. The main focus is to make it easy for readers to read. Furthermore, we provide tables of contents, indexes, etc. to quickly obtain the necessary information from a huge amount of information.
It also has various search information.

A first object of the present invention is to incorporate the above-mentioned document concept into program information, thereby making the program information itself a book (document) that describes the specifications of a computer program.

A second object of the present invention is to form a source program in program information into a form in which the control structure thereof can be easily distinguished visually.

[0011] A third object of the present invention is to form SS information in program information into a format that allows the program specifications to be easily identified visually, and to quickly search for the required SS information. It's about doing.

0012

[Means for Solving the Problems] The invention of claim 1 provides a program information editing means, a program information storage means, a program information output means, etc. that constitute a general program information creation device. means for parsing stored program information to detect key parts of comments and control structures and storing them as analysis information; The present invention is characterized by providing a means for forming a program specification and a control structure into a document with a visually easy-to-discern expression.

[0013] Furthermore, the invention according to claim 2 is characterized in that the document forming means generates a table of contents and an index of the document in addition to documenting the program information.

[0014]

[Operation] By documenting the program information, the control structure of the source program in the program information is formed into a form that can be easily distinguished visually. Also,
The SS information in the program information is also formatted in a format that allows the program specifications to be easily identified visually, and by adding a table of contents and index to the document, it is possible to quickly search for the SS information that is needed. become.

[0015]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a system configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 101 is a keyboard, 102 is a mouse, 103 is a program information storage device, 104 is a data processing device, 111 is an analysis information storage device, 112 is a display device, and 113 is a printing device. Data processing device 10
4 consists of a CPU, ROM, RAM, etc. in terms of hardware, but here, in terms of functions, it includes a control means 105, a program information editing means 106, a program information documenting means 107, and a program information forming buffer 108.
, program information analysis means 109 , and program information output means 110 .

The entire system operates under the control of control means 105. When creating new program information, the user performs input work using the keyboard 101 and mouse 102 as input means while looking at the display device 112. The input information is passed through the control means 105 to the editing means 106
and edited. The program information created in this way is stored in the storage device 103, and is also sent to the display device 112 or the printing device 1 via the program information forming buffer 108 and the program information output means 110 as necessary.
Output to 13. When modifying program information that has already been created, the program information is taken out from the storage device 103 to the editing means 106, and the program information is sent to the display device 112 via the program information forming buffer 108 and the program information output means 110. indicate. The user presses the keyboard 101 while looking at the display device 112.
, performs correction work using the mouse 102, and the editing means 106 receives the information through the control means 105 and re-edits the program information. The program information modified in this way is stored again in the storage device 103, and is output to the display device 112 or the printing device 113 as necessary. These functions are similar to those of conventional general program information creation devices.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, in addition to the above configuration, in order to form the program information itself into a book (document) that describes the specifications of the computer program, a program information documenting means 107 and a program information analysis unit are used. Means 109 and analysis information storage means 111 are present.

FIG. 2 shows a processing procedure for documenting program information. Documentation means 10
7 first generates a cover page as a document (step 201). Next, program information for documenting is read from the storage device 103 onto the forming buffer 108 (step 202). Next, the analysis means 109 performs syntax analysis on this read program information, detects the position where a key part of the comment or control structure exists, and stores it in the analysis information storage device 109 as analysis information (step 203). Next, the documentation means 107 forms a document on the buffer 108 while comparing the analysis information and the program information.
Generate the part corresponding to the body of the document (
Step 204). If there is still program information designated to be documented, the next program information is read and text generation is repeated (step 205). When the documentation unit 107 finishes generating the text, it generates a table of contents for the document (step 206), and finally generates an index for the document (step 207).
. The information thus formed as a document is output by the output means 110 to the display device 112 or the printing device 113 depending on the purpose (step 208).

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the hierarchical structure of program information. Generally, one piece of program information is organized into units called modules for each group of functions, such as input and output. Modules can be further divided into units called functions, depending on the unit of internal processing. FIG. 4 shows an example of function program information (hereinafter referred to as C program information) written in C language, which is a type of programming language. The program information will be explained below by taking the C program information shown in FIG. 4 as an example.

[0021] The source program in the program information is
It consists of coding information 403, which is the main body, and comment information 404, which describes the processing contents of the source code as annotations. As shown in Figure 4, in C language, "/*"
The range surrounded by and “*/” is comment information, and it can be written in any part of the program information 401. 402 is called SS information, and in order to clarify the functional specifications for each module and function, the function declaration line (
(Start line) This is comment information added as a header at the front. By providing SS information, functional specifications can be effectively understood during maintenance work, so it is often included during programming. In this way, comment information can assist in understanding coding information, but on the other hand, if sufficient attention is not paid to the placement of comment information when creating program information, comment information may be buried in coding information. At the same time, the two pieces of information become mixed together, making the program information even more difficult to read.

In FIG. 4, the start position of the function is 405, and the end position is 406. In between, a determination command 407 and a repeat command 408 for controlling functions are included. In the coding information 403, there are key parts of the control structure as described above, but in actual program information, there are multiple functions in a row and the source code is an enumeration of symbolic alphanumeric characters. , it is difficult to identify the key parts at first glance. Such problems can be solved by documenting program information.

Documentation will be described in detail below using program information as an example. First, Figures 4 and 5 regarding the generation of the main text in the document (step 204 in Figure 2).
Explain using. In generating the main text, various visual expressions are applied to the program information, and here, three examples will be shown as specific examples.

The first is effective expression of SS information. First, the SS information 402 in FIG. 4 is segmented based on the keyword words in the SS information detected by the program information analysis process (step 203 in FIG. 2), and the information is divided into documents as shown in 502 in FIG. This is an image of the "heading" part of , and is shaped into an expression that is not found in the source code. FIG. 5 shows an example in which comment information in SS information is surrounded by ruled lines and function names are shaded. This makes it possible to clearly distinguish between functions and to avoid confusion between source code and SS information. For words that serve as keywords for separating SS information, the SS information keyword input guiding function operates during the syntax analysis in step 203 to guide the user in a direction to compensate for the lack of information. What is shown at 502 in FIG. 5 is the SS information of the function, but the SS information of the module belonging to the upper layer of the function can be expressed in a different format.
It is clearly separated from other modules.

The second is effective expression of comment information attached to coding information in a source program. The comment information 404 added to the coding information 403 in FIG. It is possible to clearly separate coding information and comment information. FIG. 5 shows an example in which the comment information column 503 is placed on the left and the coding information column 504 is placed on the right. Furthermore, depending on how comments are added, it is possible to understand coding information simply by reading the comment information column.

The third point is to clarify the program control structure. By changing the output form of the letters of the key words of the control structure present in the coding information, the control mechanism can be visually and clearly expressed. 505 in FIG. 5 is an example in which the determination instruction 407 and repeat instruction 408 present in the coding information 403 of the program information 401 in FIG. 4 are expressed in italic character font. Also, Figure 5
As shown in 506, it is also possible to display the controllable range of the command word according to the user's designation. Other,
In FIG. 5, the start and end positions of the function are clearly indicated (507), and variables given as input to the function are expressed using different fonts from other variables (508).

Next, regarding generation of the table of contents and index (steps 206 and 207 in FIG. 2), which are means for searching SS information,
This will be explained using FIG.

[0028] In this document, the content is divided into paragraphs, a table of contents, an index is attached, pagination, etc., making it possible to quickly search for the desired location. Since the program information also has a hierarchical structure as shown in FIG. 3, it is possible to introduce the concept of chapters and paragraphs in a document.

Among the constituent units of a computer program,
Although it is possible to arbitrarily specify what should be considered a chapter or a paragraph, FIG. 6 shows an example of generating a table of contents and an index when a module is a chapter and a function is a paragraph. The program information shown in FIG. 6 consists of main and sub modules, with function 606 in the main module and function 6 in the sub module.
There are 07 and 608. First, in the documentation means 107, 606 is formed into 603, 607 is formed into 604, and 608 is formed into 605. Next, the number of pages on which the chapter is published is generated as a table of contents 601. Furthermore, the number of pages on which the paragraph is published is generated as an index 602. Here, index 602
is an example of sorting paragraph names (function names) in alphabetical order.

As shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, by documenting the program information, the control structure of the source program in the program information can be easily identified visually, and the SS information in the program information can be easily identified. , format the program specifications in a format that can be easily identified visually,
Furthermore, it is possible to obtain program information as a document that most realistically expresses the functional specifications of a computer program, which has a table of contents, an index, etc. for quickly searching for the required SS information.

[0031]

As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, by documenting the program information, the control structure of the source program in the program information can be formed into a form that can be visually distinguished. The comment information in the program information is also shaped into a format that allows the program specifications to be easily identified visually, and the document also has a table of contents and an index that allow you to quickly search for the SS information you need. The efficiency of maintenance work can be improved.

Furthermore, in the present invention, analysis information of program information is created and saved, but since this information records the position of a keyword in the program information, by reusing it, It is also easy to document separate program information.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a process flow diagram for documenting program information.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a hierarchical structure of program information.

FIG. 4 is a specific example of program information.

FIG. 5 is an example of documenting the program information in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram of generation of a table of contents and index of a document.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 Keyboard 102 Mouse 103 Program information storage device 104 Data processing device 105 Control means 106 Program information editing means 107 Program information documentation means 108
Program information forming buffer 109 Program information analysis means 110 Program information output means 111 Analysis information storage device 112 Display device 113 Printing device

Claims (2)

[Claims] Claim 1: Input and edit program information consisting of a source program configured according to the syntax rules of a desired programming language, and comment information in which the functional specifications are described as comments in the source program for each functional unit of the source program. means for creating the program information, means for storing the created program information, and displaying the program information;
means for parsing the created program information, detecting key parts of comments and control structures, and storing them as analysis information. A method for documenting program information, comprising: means for forming the program information into a document in which the program specifications and control structure thereof are expressed in an easy-to-visually distinguish manner based on the analysis information. 2. The program information documentation method according to claim 1, wherein the document forming means generates a table of contents and an index of the document in addition to documenting the program information.