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Reconstructing Data Flow Diagrams from Structure Charts Based on the Input and Output Relationship

Shuichiro YAMAMOTO

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Summary :

The traceability of data flow diagrams against structure charts is very important for large software development. Specifying if there is a relationship between a data flow diagram and a structure chart is a time consuming task. Existing CASE tools provide a way to maintain traceability. If we can extract the input-output relationship of a system from a structure chart, the corresponding data flow diagram can be automatically generated from the relationship. For example, Benedusi et al. proposed a reverse engineering methodology to reconstruct a data flow diagram from existing code. The methodology develops a hierarchical data flow diagram from dependency relationships between the program variables. The methodology, however, transforms each module in structure charts into a process in data flow diagrams. The reconstructed diagrams may have different processes with the same name. This paper proposes a transformation algorithm that solves these problems. It analyzes the structure charts and extracts the input and ouput relationships, then determines how the set of outputs depends on the set of inputs for the data flow diagram process. After that, it produces a data flow diagram based on the include operation between the sets of output items. The major characteristics of the algorithm are that it is simple, because it only uses the basic operations of sets, it generates data flow diagrams with deterministic steps, and it can generate minimal data flow diagrams. This process will reduce the cost of traceability between data flow diagrams and structure charts.

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information Vol.E78-D No.9 pp.1118-1126
Publication Date
1995/09/25
Publicized
Online ISSN
DOI
Type of Manuscript
Special Section PAPER (Special Issue on Knowledge Based Software Engineering)
Category
Methodologies

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