关键词:
Design
Documentation
Languages
Experimentation
Measurement
Use case modeling
analysis model
UML
class diagram
sequence diagram
activity diagram
transformation
traceability
automation
摘要:
The transition from an informal requirements specification in natural language to a structured, precise specification is an important challenge in practice. It is particularly so for object-oriented methods, defined in the context of the OMG's Model Driven Architecture (MDA), where a key step is to transition from a use case model to an analysis model. However, providing automated support for this transition is challenging, mostly because, in practice, requirements are expressed in natural language and are much less structured than other kinds of development artifacts. Such an automated transformation would enable at least the generation of an initial, likely incomplete, analysis model and enable automated traceability from requirements to code, through various intermediate models. In this article, we propose a method and a tool called aToucan, building on existing work, to automatically generate a UML analysis model comprising class, sequence and activity diagrams from a use case model and to automatically establish traceability links between model elements of the use case model and the generated analysis model. Note that our goal is to save effort through automated support, not to replace human abstraction and decision making. Seven (six) case studies were performed to compare class (sequence) diagrams generated by aToucan to the ones created by experts, Masters students, and trained, fourth-year undergraduate students. Results show that aToucan performs well regarding consistency (e.g., 88% class diagram consistency) and completeness (e.g., 80% class completeness) when comparing generated class diagrams with reference class diagrams created by experts and Masters students. Similarly, sequence diagrams automatically generated by aToucan are highly consistent with the ones devised by experts and are also rather complete, for instance, 91% and 97% message consistency and completeness, respectively. Further, statistical tests show that aTo