Changing and tracing of software requirements at level of conceptual classes

Abstract

The article explores the problem of automating the description of Use Cases at the stage of forming requirements in the design of software products. Methods for correcting the model of conceptual classes in connection with changes in the formulation of various items of scenarios for Use Cases are proposed and tracing of each item of the Use Case scenario in conceptual classes and their methods and attributes. Changing requirements at the level of use cases description means deleting previously compiled items of the scenario and/or adding new ones. Deleting a Use Case is considered to be a consecutive deletion of all of its items, and editing a scenario item as a deletion followed by a new edition. The methods of removing all types of scenario items of the proposed classification in various possible situations are considered: the class created earlier was not used in other items of this or other use cases; the class created earlier was not used in other items of this or other use cases, but the function contained in the class has references to other functions; the class created earlier was used in other items of this or other use cases and the function contained in the class has no reference to other functions; the class created earlier was used in other items of this or other use cases and the function contained in the class has references to other functions. Methods have been developed for determining the relationships of Use Case and its item with classes, their methods and attributes that implement this item (direct tracing), and determining the relationship of any data element or class method with various Use Case and their items (reverse tracing). The proposed method for conceptual classes correcting allows automatic deleting various items in scenarios while maintaining the correct presentation of conceptual classes. It is shown that there is a significant reduction in time for correcting classes in an automated mode compared to the traditional manual mode. The tracing method also significantly reduces the time it takes to find the connections between the Use Case.