On the Importance of Inter-scenario Relationships in Hierarchical State Machine Design

Bordeleau, Francis; Corriveau, Jean-Pierre

doi:10.1007/3-540-45314-8_12

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Recent research on use cases has dealt with the formal integration and analysis of use cases. Many approaches have been developed to synthesize state-based models from a set of use cases or scenarios [1,4,6,8,[19][20][21][22][23][24]. State-based models are needed primarily to validate and verify the user requirements in order to detect defects as early as possible in the life cycle.…”

Section: Related Work and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…State-based models are needed primarily to validate and verify the user requirements in order to detect defects as early as possible in the life cycle. As an example of such approaches, Bordeleau et al [22] have proposed integration patterns for use case dependencies. They use Use Case Maps (UCMs) [8] to describe dependencies between use cases.…”

Section: Related Work and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Merging partial system behaviours: composition of use-case automata

Mizouni

Salah

Kolahi³

et al. 2007

IET Software

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Modeling the behavior of a system under development has proven to be a very effective way to ensure that it will be constructed correctly. However, building up this model is a difficult task that requires a significant time investment in and a high level of expertise. Consequently, incremental approaches that construct a system model from partial behavioral descriptions have been widely adopted. The challenge in such approaches lies in finding both the adequate behavioral formalism that fits the needs of the analyst as well as a formal composition mechanism that facilitates the generation of the expected behavioral model and produces a verifiable model. Within this framework, use case approaches have been also accepted in industry because they make the process of requirement elicitation simpler. Their main shortcoming is their lack of formalization, which makes validation difficult. In this paper, we propose a formal approach for composing system behaviors where partial system behaviors are defined as finite state automata. Each automaton represents a use case that describes a certain system concern, hence the name use case automata (UCA). The composition of different UCAs could be performed with respect to a set of states or transitions specified by the analyst, using certain composition operators. Each of these operators has a precise semantics, which is defined by how the composition is performed. The formalization of use case composition is based on label matching between the UCAs to be composed. Our approach is fully automated and provides the advantage of generating a UCA that meets the intended behavior without unexpected scenarios. Finally, we present the UMACT tool, which implements our composition approach.

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Section: Related Work and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Work and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Merging partial system behaviours: composition of use-case automata

Mizouni

Salah

Kolahi³

et al. 2007

IET Software

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“…The whole process is done manually and relies on the creativity of the analyst to connect together the different statecharts in the right way. Araujo et al [15] focuses on representing aspects during the use case modeling. They propose to differentiate between aspectual and non-aspectual scenarios.…”

Section: Related Work and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Composition of Use Cases Using Synchronization and Model Checking

Mizouni

Salah

Kolahi

et al. 2006

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Abstract.Capturing the behavior of a system by use cases have been intensively investigated in the last decade. The challenge is to find both the adequate model that fits the needs of the analyst and a formal composition mechanism which helps the generation of the expected behavior. In this paper, we propose a formal approach for specifying and composing use cases based on assignments. Those assignments are used to express new use cases. An assignment provides the join points and the composition operators that will be taken into account during the composition. These join points are, in fact, determined through a model checking step. They represent states where a property defined by the analyst holds. In order to evaluate these assignments, we define a composition mechanism based on the well known concept of synchronized product.

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“…The states for multiple LSCs are not combined in any way other than using orthogonal regions to define parallel composition. Earlier work [Bordeleau and Corriveau 2001] showed how to generate hierarchy in state machines taking a pattern-based approach. This has never been automated, however, and indeed, was intended as a manual process.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthesizing hierarchical state machines from expressive scenario descriptions

Whittle

Jayaraman

2010

ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol.

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There are many examples in the literature of algorithms for synthesizing state machines from scenario-based models. The motivation for these is to automate the transition from scenario-based requirements to early behavioral design models. To date, however, these synthesis algorithms have tended to generate flat state machines which can be difficult to understand or adapt for practical systems. One of the reasons for this is that relationships between scenarios are often not taken into account during synthesis-either because the relationships are not explicitly defined or because the synthesis algorithms are not sophisticated enough to cope with them. If relationships are not considered, it is impossible for a synthesis algorithm to know, for example, where one scenario stops and another continues. Furthermore, the lack of relationships makes it difficult to introduce structure into the generated state machines. With the introduction of interaction overview diagrams (IODs) in UML2.0, relationships such as continuation and concurrency can now be specified between scenarios in a way that conforms to the UML standard. But synthesis algorithms do not currently exist that take into account all of these relationships. This article presents a novel synthesis algorithm for an extended version of interaction overview diagram. This algorithm takes into account not only continuation and concurrency, but also preemption, suspension and the notion of a negative scenario. Furthermore, the synthesis algorithm generates well-structured state machines. These state machines are executable and can therefore be used to validate the scenarios. The hierarchy generated aids readability and so the state machines are more amenable to subsequent design steps. Our IOD extensions have a formal semantics and are supported by a synthesis and execution tool, UCSIM, which is currently provided as a plug-in to IBM Rational Software Modeler.The work described in this article is an extension of work described in two previous articles, Whittle and Jayaraman [2006] and Jayaraman and Whittle [2007].

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On the Importance of Inter-scenario Relationships in Hierarchical State Machine Design

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

Merging partial system behaviours: composition of use-case automata

Merging partial system behaviours: composition of use-case automata

Composition of Use Cases Using Synchronization and Model Checking

Synthesizing hierarchical state machines from expressive scenario descriptions

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