JPH07121372A - Class succession relation derivation system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the quality and performance of a software and to improve development efficiency by automatically deriving class succession relation in the development of the object oriented software. CONSTITUTION:Concerning the class succession relation derivation system for the object oriented software development, this system is provided with an abstract word registration part 5 for successively relating respective phrases expressing abstract meaning concerning information, which contains class names, peculiar for classes with phrases at the higher degree of abstraction and for registering those phrases while hierarchizing them for each abstract degree level, and a super class derivation part 6 for reading the phrases making the class name of an input class abstract into one hierarchy and the respective phrases of the input class made abstract at this abstract degree level from this abstract word registration part 5 and for deriving the super class of the input class by combining these respective phrases made abstract and the respective phrases of input class diversion.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an object-oriented software development technique, and more particularly to a class inheritance relationship deriving system suitable for efficiently defining classes.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Object-oriented software development is performed by modeling an object required by a development target with a data type indicating the structure of the object (this data type is called a class). For example, in the aircraft management system, when it is necessary to manage the "crew number" and "maximum speed" of the "commercial aircraft", the "crew number",
Data expression format (data type) of "maximum flight speed"
Define a class called "commercial plane" with. In this case, those with specific data such as "commercial aircraft with three crew members" and "commercial aircraft with two crew members" are class "commercial aircraft".
Object that belongs to.

Prior art on object-oriented class inheritance includes James Rambo, Michael Braha, William Premelani, Frederick
Eddie, William Lorensen, Translated by Eiichi Hanyuda, "Object-Oriented Methodology OMT" (1992, published by Toppan Co., Ltd.), pages 43 to 47. The inheritance of classes in object orientation will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a class, FIG.
FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing a notation of class inheritance relationship, and FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing a procedure for deriving a class inheritance relationship of superclasses. The class notation shown in FIG. 7 is described in detail on page 31 of the above cited document, and the box with three areas represents the class 71. These areas have contents indicating a class name, an attribute name, and an operation name from the top. Here, an attribute is data held by an object belonging to a class, and an operation is a function or function applied to an object belonging to a class. In addition, the class name, attribute name, operation name, etc. unique to each class are referred to as class-specific information.

In the example of FIG. 8, a triangle 84 indicates that the "bus" class 81 and the "taxi" class 82 inherit the "automobile" class 83. In this case, the “automobile” class 83 inherited from the “bus” class 81 and the “taxi” class 82 is the “bus” class 81.
"Tax" class 82 is called a super class. By creating a more generalized superclass in this way, for example, when defining the "passenger car" class next time, it is not necessary to define the attributes and operations already defined in the "automobile" class 83. Instead, all that is required is to define the difference portion to represent the "passenger car" class.

As described on page 46 of the above-mentioned publicly known example material, the class inheritance derivation procedure models the system for each target system, looks at the resulting classes, and looks similar. Humans were responsible for grouping classes into common code and deriving a more general superclass. Explaining with reference to FIG. 9, the “crew number” and the “flight number” in the “commercial aircraft” class 91 and the “passenger aircraft” class 92 are the same “crew number”.
Artificially found that, "abstract" civilian aircraft and "passenger aircraft" into the more general word "airplane",
The "airplane" class 93 having "crew number" as an attribute was defined as a super class.

However, in such a conventional technique, since the abstraction is manually performed every time the development is performed, the developer has to perform the abstraction of the repeated phrase even for the same word for each development target. And development efficiency is poor. Also, when developing with multiple developers at the same time, the developers
Even the same word (phrase) has different generalized words, which reduces the consistency of the program. Furthermore, even if the attributes and operations of each class generally have the same meaning, as in the example of “number of crew members” and “number of flight members” shown in FIG. 9, different phrases are used. If it is expressed by, it will be overlooked, similar program development will be performed, and there is a problem that development efficiency will decrease.

[0008]

The problem to be solved by the present invention is that in the prior art, the efficiency of development of object-oriented software is reduced because the words are abstracted by hand to derive the class inheritance relationship. , The deterioration of program consistency, and the deterioration of program quality cannot be avoided. An object of the present invention is to provide a class inheritance relationship deriving system that solves these problems of the prior art and enables efficient development of highly reliable and high performance object-oriented software.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the class inheritance relationship deriving system of the present invention is (1) an abstraction regarding class-specific information including a class name in class design in object-oriented software development. An abstract word registration unit (abstract word registration unit 5 in FIG. 1) for sequentially associating each word or phrase representing a specific meaning with a word or phrase having a higher abstraction level and registering the words hierarchically for each abstraction level is input. The level of abstraction one level above the class name of the class,
Search the abstract word register for each abstracted word of each word of the input class that includes this class name, and combine each read word and each word of the input class that is not registered in the abstract word register And a superclass derivation unit (a superclass derivation unit 6 in FIG. 1) for deriving a superclass of the input class having a class name that is an abstraction of the class name of the input class. Also,
(2) In the class inheritance relationship deriving system according to (1) above, a word of an abstraction level one level higher corresponding to each class name of a plurality of superclasses having the same abstraction level derived by the superclass deriving unit. , The abstract word registration unit is searched and read, and if the read phrases are the same, the same phrase is used as the class name, and the same procedure as the superclass derivation unit is performed, and one layer corresponding to a plurality of superclasses is displayed. It is characterized in that an upper class deriving unit (upper class deriving unit 7 in FIG. 1) for deriving a superclass of the abstraction level is provided. (3) In the class inheritance relationship deriving system according to (1) or (2) above, storage control of each superclass derived by the superclass deriving unit and the superclass deriving unit is performed. A class storage unit (class storage unit 8 in FIG. 1) and a superclass input unit (superclass input unit in FIG. 1) for inputting each superclass stored in this class storage unit as a new input class into the superclass derivation unit. 9), the input class, and the superclasses derived by the superclass derivation unit and the superclass derivation unit, respectively, are displayed in a class inheritance relationship display unit (class inheritance in FIG. 1) in which the respective inheritance relationships are associated with each other. A relationship display unit 10), and a word / phrase registration control unit (word / phrase registration control unit 11 in FIG. 1) that controls word / phrase registration in the abstract word registration unit. And wherein the providing.

[0010]

In the present invention, the relation between the word and the word and the word which is abstracted from the word is hierarchized and registered in the abstract word registering unit,
By searching the abstract word registration unit, the word and the abstracted word can be automatically associated with each other without human intervention. By this, it is possible to avoid overlooking the similarity of information unique to each class and avoid inconsistency in the abstracted word among multiple developers. Furthermore, the same word that the developer did for each development target can be avoided. You can reduce the repetition of abstraction.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a configuration according to the present invention of a class inheritance relationship deriving system of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a disk device for storing data on a magnetic storage medium, and 2 is a CRT (Cathode).
A display device for displaying on a Ray Tube, a cathode ray tube, etc., 3 is an input device composed of a keyboard, a mouse, etc., 4 is a CPU (Central Process)
(g Unit, central processing unit), memory, etc., and is an information processing device that performs class inheritance relationship derivation processing in object-oriented software development according to the present invention.

The information processing device 4 includes an abstract word registration unit 5 for hierarchically registering each word representing an abstract meaning of class-specific information as an abstract word dictionary 5a, 5b, and an abstract word registration unit 5. A superclass deriving unit 6 that searches and derives a superclass of the input class, and a superclass deriving unit 7 that combines a plurality of superclasses derived by the superclass deriving unit 6 into a class with a higher degree of abstraction.
And the superclass derivation unit 6 and superclass derivation unit 7
Class storage unit 8 for storing each superclass derived by each of the above in the disk device 1, and superclass input unit 9 for inputting each superclass stored in the disk device 1 into the superclass deriving unit as a new input class.
And the superclass derivation unit 6 and superclass derivation unit 7
Class inheritance relationship display unit 10 that graphically displays each inheritance relationship between each superclass derived from each of the above and each class input from the input device 3, and a phrase registration control unit that performs a process of registering a phrase in the abstract word registration unit 5. 11 and 11.

In such a configuration, when the system is started, the word / phrase registration control unit 11 causes the abstract word dictionary stored in advance in the disk device 1 or the abstract word input from the input device 3 to be an abstract word. When transferred to the registration unit 5, the abstract word registration unit 5 stores each word representing an abstract meaning of class-specific information such as a class name, an attribute name, an operation name, etc.
Words having a higher degree of abstraction are sequentially associated, hierarchized for each abstraction level, and registered as a plurality of abstract word dictionaries 5a and 5b. Then, when the class to be processed is input from the input device 3, the superclass derivation unit 6 reads out the phrase of the level of abstraction one level higher than the class name of the input class from the abstract word registration unit 5, Each abstracted word corresponding to each word of the input class is read from the abstract word registration unit 5 at the same level of abstraction as the read word, and these words and the abstract word registration unit 5 are not registered. The words of the input class are combined and the word of the class name of the input class one level above the abstraction level is used as the class name to derive the superclass corresponding to the input class.

Further, the superordinate class deriving unit 7 registers, as an abstract word, a phrase in which the class names of a plurality of superclasses of the same abstraction level derived by the superclass deriving unit 6 are abstracted by one layer. If the words read from the unit 5 are the same, the same words are used as the class name, and the same procedure as the superclass deriving unit 6 is performed.
Derive the superclass at the upper level of abstraction corresponding to multiple superclasses. In this way, each superclass derived by the superclass derivation unit 6 and the superordinate class derivation unit 7 is stored in the class storage unit 8
Then, the data is stored in the disk device 1 and is further input from the disk device 1 to the superclass deriving unit 6 as a new input class by the superclass input unit 9. Then, the superclass deriving unit 6 abstracts the superclass input via the superclass input unit 9. The class inheritance relationship display unit 10 includes the input device 1
The input class input to the superclass deriving unit 6 from each other, the superclasses derived by the superclass deriving unit 6 and the upper class deriving unit 7, and the like are associated with each other in the inheritance relationship, and displayed on the display device 2. To do.

The operation of the class inheritance relationship deriving system of this embodiment will be described below with reference to FIGS. 2 to 5 using a concrete example. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of registered contents of the abstract word registration unit in FIG. This example shows a configuration example of the abstract word dictionaries 5a and 5b of the abstract word registration unit 5 in FIG. 1, and the dictionary numbers (“1”, “2”, “3”) in this figure.
Represents the level of abstraction, each number string following the dictionary number is the item number of each word, and the number to the right of each word (marked as in the figure) is one level higher. This is the item number of the word of abstraction level. For example, a more generalized (abstract 20) version of the “civil aircraft” with the item number “1” of the dictionary number “1” is the “airplane” with the item number “1” of the dictionary number “2”. The one having the higher abstraction level (abstraction 21) is the "vehicle" of the item number "1" of the dictionary number "3". "0" is registered in the number on the right side of the phrase "number of crews" of the item number "3" of the dictionary number "2", indicating that there is no phrase abstracting this phrase "number of crews".

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of the contents of the class input to the superclass deriving unit in FIG. In the figure, 31 is the class name "commercial aircraft", the attributes "number of crew" and "maximum flight speed", the operation is "flying""commercialaircraft" class, 32 is the class name "passenger aircraft" , "Flight number" and "maximum speed", "passenger" class of operation "fly", 33 is the class name "motor boat", attribute "number of passengers" and "max knots", operation "navigation" Motorboat "class and 34
Is a "passenger ship" class with the class name "passenger ship", the attributes "number of crew members" and "maximum knots", and operation "navigation".
These "commercial aircraft" class 31, "passenger aircraft" class 3
2, "motor boat" class 33, "passenger boat" class 3
Each of the input classes 4 is input to the superclass derivation unit 6 of FIG. 1, and the superclass as shown in the next FIG. 4 is derived.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of deriving a superclass by the superclass deriving unit in FIG.
In this example, the superclass derivation unit 6 of FIG. 1 performs superclasses for each of the input classes (“civil aircraft” class 31, “passenger aircraft” class 32, “motorboat” class 33, “passenger boat” class 34) in FIG. "airplane"
It is derived from class 41, "ship" class 42). The derivation operation will be described below. First of all, when the "Civilian" class 31 is entered, the "Civilian" class 31
The abstract word registration unit 5 of FIG. 1 is searched for the information unique to the. For example, as shown by the abstraction 20 in FIG. 2, “airplane” is read for “commercial aircraft”, and similarly, “crew number” is read for “crew number”. “Maximum flight speed” and “flying” are registered in the dictionary of abstraction level “2” in the registration content of FIG. 2, and the level is the same as the phrase “airplane”,
Use the word as it is without abstraction.

By constructing using these words,
The “airplane” class 41 is derived as a super class of the “civil aircraft” class 31. In exactly the same way, the remaining three classes, the "passenger plane" class 32, the "motorboat" class 33, and the "passenger ship" class 34 are derived. That is, the “airplane” class 41 is derived for the “passenger aircraft” class 32, and the “ship” class 44 is derived for the “motor boat” class 33 and the “passenger ship” class 34. In the "passenger aircraft" class 32, there is "maximum speed" in its attribute, and this "maximum speed" is "3" at the abstraction level dictionary and "2" at the abstraction level "2" in the abstract word dictionary in FIG. Since it is higher than “airplane”, it is adjusted to the attribute “maximum flight speed” of “airplane” class 41. "Airplane" class 4 derived in this way
1 and the superclass of the "ship" class 42 are further integrated by the upper class derivation unit 7 in FIG. 1, as will be described in FIG. 5 below.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of superclass integration operation by the upper class derivation unit in FIG. In this example, the superclass deriving unit 6 in FIG.
The “airplane” class 41 and the “ship” class 42, which are superclasses derived corresponding to each of the “commercial aircraft” class 31, the “passenger aircraft” class 32, the “motorboat” class 33, and the “passenger boat” class 34, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a class inheritance relationship when the upper class derivation unit 7 in FIG. 1 is integrated using the abstract word dictionary of registered contents shown in FIG.

That is, "airplane" class 41 and "ship"
Class name of each class 42 "Airplane" and "Ship"
In the abstract word dictionary of FIG. 2 match with “vehicle” at the abstraction level “3”. Therefore, the upper class derivation unit 7 in FIG. 1 first reads “vehicle” as an abstract word for the word “airplane”, which is the class name of the “airplane” class 41, by the abstraction 21 in FIG. 2. . As for the word "crew number", which is an attribute, as shown in the item number "3" of the abstraction level "2" of the abstract word dictionary in FIG. 2, an address that points to the abstract word of the "crew number". Is "0". This indicates that the abstract word "number of crew members" is not registered, so this term is used.

Regarding the phrase "maximum flight speed" having the same attribute, "maximum velocity" in the item number "3" of the abstraction level "3" in the abstract word dictionary of FIG. 2 is read out, and the operation phrase "flying" is read. 2), "move" in the item number "2" of the abstraction level "3" of the abstract word dictionary of FIG. 2 is read. The super class of the “airplane” class 41 thus derived is the “vehicle” class 51. Similarly,
A "vehicle" class 51, which is a super class for the "ship" class 42, is derived. Then, "Vehicles" will be assigned to the superclasses of "Airplane" class 41 and "Ship" class 42.
Integrated into class 51. As a result, the class inheritance relationship shown in this figure is derived.
Displayed on the display device 2 by the class inheritance relationship display unit 10 in.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing an example of the processing operation according to the present invention of the class inheritance relationship deriving system in FIG. Once the class is entered (step 10
1) First, an abstracted word is read from the abstract word dictionary for the class name, the attribute name, and the operation name, which are the input information unique to the class (step 102). It is checked whether a word obtained by further abstracting the word corresponding to the read class name is registered in the abstract word dictionary, and it is determined whether or not to form a superclass (step 103). If it is registered, the superclass is constructed using the words and phrases read from the abstract word dictionary (step 104). The original word is used as the unregistered word.

While there are classes to read (step 10)
5) The superclass is derived using the abstract word dictionary (steps 101 to 104). In this way, when a plurality of superclasses are derived, the superclasses are compared to integrate the classes (step 106), the inheritance relationships of the classes are displayed (step 107), and Is stored (step 108), and the process ends. By inputting the superclass stored in this way into the system, a further abstracted class inheritance relationship can be derived.

As described above with reference to FIGS. 1 to 6, in the class inheritance relationship deriving system of this embodiment, the abstract word registration unit hierarchically associates the words with the abstracted words. By deriving the superclass of the input class by searching this abstract word registration unit,
The similarity of information unique to each class can be efficiently discovered, and the class inheritance relationship can be efficiently derived. As a result, it is possible to avoid oversight of similarity of information unique to each class and inconsistency of words and phrases abstracted among multiple developers, which occur in the conventional technology. It is possible to reduce the number of repetitions of abstraction of the same word performed each time and improve the development efficiency of object-oriented software.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiments described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 6, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. For example, in the present embodiment, the superclass derived by the superclass derivation unit is directly integrated with the superclass derivation unit, but the superclass derived by the superclass derivation unit is It may be stored in the disk device, the stored superclass may be read out, and the upper class derivation unit may integrate the classes.

[0026]

According to the present invention, the class inheritance relationship can be derived without human intervention, the development efficiency of object-oriented software can be improved, the consistency of programs can be improved, and the program quality can be improved. It is possible to improve and efficiently develop highly reliable and high performance object-oriented software.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a configuration according to the present invention of a class inheritance relationship deriving system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of registration contents of an abstract word registration unit in FIG.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of content of a class input to a superclass deriving unit in FIG.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of deriving a super class by a super class deriving unit in FIG.

5 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a superclass unifying operation by a higher class deriving unit in FIG. 1. FIG.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an example of processing operation according to the present invention of the class inheritance relationship deriving system in FIG.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a class.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram showing a notation of class inheritance relationship.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing a procedure for deriving a class inheritance relationship of superclasses.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Disk device 2 Display device 3 Input device 4 Information processing device 5 Abstract word registration unit 5a, 5b Abstract word dictionary 6 Super class derivation unit 7 Upper class derivation unit 8 Class storage unit 9 Super class input unit 10 Class inheritance relation display unit 11 Word registration control section 20, 21 Abstraction 31 "Civilian aircraft" class 32 "Passenger aircraft" class 33 "Motorboat" class 34 "Passenger boat" class 41 "Airplane" class 42 "Ship" class 51 "Vehicle" class 71 Class 81 "Bus" "Class 82" Taxi "class 83" Car "class 84 Triangle 91" Civilian "class 92" Passenger "class 93" Airplane "class

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. In class design in object-oriented software development, words and phrases representing an abstract meaning of class-specific information including a class name are sequentially associated with words and phrases having a higher abstraction level, and the abstraction level is set. The abstract word registration means for hierarchically registering each class, and the abstracted words of each word of the input class including the class name at the level of abstraction one level above the class name of the input class The abstract word registration means is searched and read, and the read words and phrases and the words and phrases of the input class that are not registered in the abstract word registration means are combined to abstract the class name of the input class into a class name. And a superclass deriving means for deriving a superclass of the above-mentioned input class. 2. The class inheritance relationship deriving system according to claim 1, wherein the superclass deriving means derives one level higher abstraction level corresponding to each class name of a plurality of superclasses of the same abstraction level. The phrase is read by searching the abstract word registering means, and if the read phrases are the same, the same phrase is used as a class name by the same procedure as the superclass deriving means.
A class inheritance relationship deriving system, characterized in that a superordinate class deriving means for deriving a superclass at an upper level of abstraction corresponding to the plurality of superclasses is provided. 3. The class inheritance relationship deriving system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein storage control of each superclass derived by each of the superclass deriving means and the upper class deriving means is performed. Class storing means, superclass inputting means for inputting each superclass stored by the class storing means to the superclass deriving means as a new input class,
To the class inheritance relationship display means for displaying the input class and each superclass derived by each of the superclass derivation means and the superclass derivation means in a graphic form in which the respective inheritance relationships are associated, and to the abstract word registration means. A class inheritance relationship deriving system, which is provided with a phrase registration control means for controlling registration of the phrase.