An ameliorated methodology for the abstraction of object class structures for an information system
Shivanand M. Handigund, Shweta Bhat · 2010
The software development for any information system is based on the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) of the client organization. This is incorporated in the project charter with intimation for the developer to develop the software tool for the client organization. This SRS contains the overview of the proposed system, the functional requirements, the standards requirements, the constraints, the prototypes and the glossary of terms etc. [1]. Currently, there exist some piecewise discontinuous methodologies to abstract the object class names & few other view elements from the SRS [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13]. These methodologies suffer from the correctness & completeness of abstracted view elements apart from the ambiguities involved in the abstraction steps. This paper proposes an ameliorated semi-automated methodology that overcomes all the identified lacunae (depicted in literature survey) in the existing methodologies. This proposed methodology apart from abstracting large subset of the view elements, organizes the attributes in the control flow order through the use of Control Flow Graph (CFG) & Data Flow Graph (DFG) and refines the attributes using the good database design & software engineering principles. Concurrently, it also abstracts the actor interfaces & their attributes that are involved in the interaction with the information system. The steps of this proposed methodology are developed with sound reasoning, authentication of correctness & completeness. Most of the steps are automatic, and remaining few are semiautomatic with limitation of their scope in the authentication of correctness & completeness that too with guidelines restricting arbitrary use of human skill.