JPH1145177A - Object-oriented analytic design support tool - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To permit development and maintenance following procedures of an object-oriented analytic designing method by which a developer only follows up the navigation of the tool by providing an interface which shows generating procedures for respective documents and prompts the developer to input. SOLUTION: The object-oriented analytic designing method models the actual world and a system world and represents various diagrams and tables. When their documents are created, the concept of the center of the model is a class, an event, an operation, etc. As an image of a document creation support tool by the Fusion method, a specific data structure is prepared in the form of a relational data base in a data base 1. On a screen as an interface, a document creation screen is generated and displayed as a virtual view of concept data on the basis of information in the data base. Consequently, object-oriented analytic design covering all the process of development can be made secure and easy.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an object-oriented analysis and design support tool for supporting analysis and design of a system using object-oriented technology.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In software engineering, an OMT method for performing object-oriented analysis and design,
Method, Fusion method, etc. are proposed,
Improvements and standardization are underway. CASE (Computer) that supports system development based on these methods
Aided Software Engineeri
ng) tools are in practical use.

[0003]

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

(First issue) Most of the functions of the object-oriented CASE tool currently in practical use support the drawing of diagrams proposed by the object-oriented analysis and design method, and the created diagrams are sufficient for implementation and maintenance. There is no support to make the most of it.

At present, development by the object-oriented analysis and design method largely depends on the skills of developers, and it is desired that computer-based support be obtained throughout the development process.

[0005] It is an object of the present invention to provide a support tool for ensuring and facilitating object-oriented analysis and design throughout the development process.

(Second Problem) In conventional design support using a CASE tool, there is no support for fully utilizing the results of system analysis design in subsequent development and reuse.

In system development, a technique called software metrics for measuring the size of a project, measuring quality, and predicting a process is important. However, in general, today's software metrics mainly use a measurement method mainly called the number of lines of code (LOC). However, the number of lines of code has the following problems.

[0008] Inconsistencies between different languages, applications and developers.

The complexity of the code is not reflected.

[0010] Quality and progress cannot be predicted correctly.

In order to perform development using the object-oriented analysis design method, it is necessary to use appropriate metrics in consideration of object-oriented features, and it is desirable that support for metrics analysis by a CASE tool be selected.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a support tool that can fully utilize the results of the analysis design of the system for subsequent development and reuse.

[0013]

[Means for Solving the Problems]

(First Invention) The present invention saves a relation between concepts created by an object-oriented analysis design method in a database, and creates a document or the like by inputting a diagram representing the concept as a virtual view from a user interface screen. It is capable of automatically measuring various metrics, and has the following features.

In an object-oriented analysis design for modeling a real world or a system world and creating a document to be represented in various diagrams and tables, the relation between the document and the concept represented therein is preserved. It is characterized by comprising a database and an interface having a creation procedure screen for inputting documents that need to be created and items that need to be described.

(Second invention) The database stores the relation between the document and the concept expressed therein as a relational database, and the interface stores various software metrics based on the information of the database. Is characterized in that information for automatic measurement of is summed up and displayed.

[0016]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

(First Embodiment) In the object-oriented analysis design method, the real world and the system world are modeled and expressed in various diagrams and tables. When creating these documents, the core concepts of the model are classes, events, operations, and so on. In other words, the static concept of the subject area is extracted as a class, and the dynamic concept is extracted as an event or operation, and these are described from various viewpoints to create a document.

The object-oriented analysis and design support tool according to the present embodiment automatically saves a relation between a document to be created and a concept expressed therein in a database.
Prepare an interface that prompts the user to input items that need to be described.

The support tool according to the present embodiment will be described by taking a Fusion method, which is one of the object-oriented analysis and design techniques, as an example. The main procedure of modeling by the Fusion method is as follows.

1) Create an object model.

Define classes and class attributes.

Define an inheritance relationship between classes.

Define an aggregation relationship between classes.

Define relationships between classes.

2) Identify the system interface.

Define an agent.

Define system operations and events 3) Create a life cycle model.

Describe the life cycle.

Describe a scenario.

4) Create an operation model.

5) Create an object communication graph.

Identify the object.

Identify the methods of the class.

Describe the message sequence of the object.

6) Create a visible graph.

7) Create a class description.

8) Create an inheritance graph.

9) A data dictionary is created through the above procedure.

FIG. 5 schematically shows the relationship between the document created by the above-described procedure and the concept to be extracted.

Further, the concept shown in FIG.
Simplified and described by the n-method object model diagram,
As shown in FIG. This figure shows the Fusion shown in FIG.
It is created according to the notation of the object model diagram of the method.

FIG. 1 shows an image of a document creation support tool by the Fusion method according to the present embodiment.
In the database 1, the data structure of FIG. 6 is implemented by a relational database, and a screen 2 as an interface
Creates and displays a document creation screen as a virtual view of the conceptual data based on information in the database. Specifically, to prepare the screen as shown below to select moves from the main screen 2 _1.

The object model diagram describing screen 2 ₂ performs classes, attributes, inheritance relationship, aggregation relationship, the input and output of data on the relationship.

System interface description screen 2
₃ inputs and outputs data on agents and operations.

The life cycle describing screen 2 ₄ performs input and output of data related to the life cycle, scenario.

The scenario describing screen 2 _5, for each scenario described in the lifecycle describing screen 2 _4, and inputs and outputs data regarding communication sequence associated therewith.

The operation model describing screen 2 ₆ performs input and output of the system interface description screen detailed data on the described operations on 2 _3.

The object communication graph describing screen 2 _7,
Input and output data related to objects and methods. Further, each operation described in the system interface description screen 2 ₃ and operation models describing screen 2 _6, inputs and outputs data about the message sequence associated therewith.

The visibility graph describing screen 2 _8, for each class written in an object model diagram describing screen 2 _2, and inputs and outputs data relating to the reference data associated with it.

The class description output screen 2 _9, each screen ₂ 2-2
Edit and output the class description based on the data input in step ₈ .

The data dictionary entry screen 2 _10, for each data input from said each screen describes an explanation.

By using this tool, the user can complete the document by looking at the screen and filling in unentered items.

It is to be noted that similar diagrams such as an object diagram centering on classes and a state transition diagram centering on events are used in object-oriented analysis design methods other than the Fusion method. Can be.

(Second Embodiment) FIGS. 2 and 3 show FIG.
7 shows an image of a relational database having the data structure of FIG. In the present embodiment, the following information is totalized based on the information in the database and displayed to the user.

1) The number of classes: The total number of classes in the system, which is a clue to the total work amount of the project.

2) The number of agents: The number of agents divided into relatively independent subsystems, which is a clue for development work sharing.

3) Number of methods: The total number of methods in the system, which is a clue to the total work amount of the project.

4) Number of scenarios: An index of the size of the project. It also corresponds to the number of test cases.

5) Number of operations: An index of the size of the project. It also corresponds to the number of contracts of the interface between subsystems.

6) Number of attributes for each class: an index of class size and independence.

7) The number of methods for each class: an index of the size of the class.

8) Depth of inheritance for each class: an index of the complexity of the class and maintainability.

9) Number of referenced classes for each class: an index of class independence.

10) Number of arguments for each method: an index of the flexibility and independence of the method.

11) Number of Classes to Refer for Each Method ...
It is an indicator of method independence.

12) Number of messages for each method: an index of the complexity of the method.

FIG. 4 shows an image of the display interface in the present embodiment. In this interface, a metric to be displayed is selected from a menu screen, a display button is depressed, a metric is inquired to a tool database, the metrics are totaled, and displayed on an individual display screen.

By using this tool, the user can obtain the above measured values from the results of the object-oriented analysis design, and use it for software quality measurement, process prediction, progress management, and the like.

It should be noted that similar diagrams such as an object diagram centering on classes and a state transition diagram centering on events are also applicable to object-oriented analysis design methods other than the Fusion method, so that they can be applied.

[0068]

As described above, according to the present invention, the relationship between concepts created by the object-oriented analysis design method is stored in a database, and a diagram representing the concept is input from a user interface screen as a virtual view. The following effects can be obtained because a document or the like can be created.

(1) By providing an interface for indicating the creation procedure of each document and prompting input, the developer can develop and maintain the procedure of the object-oriented analysis design method only by following the navigation of the tool.

(2) Since each document is a virtual view based on the concept stored in the database, it is possible to develop the diagram while always maintaining the consistency between the diagram and the database.

(3) Source codes of a program can be semi-automatically generated based on concepts stored in a database.

According to the present invention, the object-oriented central concept is stored in a database so that various software metrics can be automatically measured.

(4) The developer creates various documents in accordance with the procedure of the object-oriented analysis design method, whereby related concepts are stored in the database, and various metrics can be automatically measured.

(5) Since metrics of a plurality of projects can be stored in the database, various metrics values can be statistically processed and used for software quality measurement, process prediction, progress management, and the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an image of a document creation support tool according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an image (part 1) of a database showing the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a database image (part 2) showing the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an image of a metrics display screen in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a relationship between a document and a concept in the Fusion method.

FIG. 6 is a conceptual data structure in the Fusion method.

FIG. 7 is a notation of an object model diagram of the Fusion method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 ... database 2 ... interface screen

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. Modeling the real world and the system world,
In object-oriented analysis and design that creates documents to be represented in various diagrams and tables, a database that stores the relationships between the documents and the concepts expressed in them, and documents that need to be created and need to be described An interface having a creation procedure screen for inputting a certain item. 2. The database stores a relation between the document and the concept expressed therein as a relational database, and the interface automatically measures various software metrics based on information of the database. 2. The object-oriented analysis and design support tool according to claim 1, wherein information for the purpose is totalized and displayed.