Publication detail

A Graph Representation for Use Case Specifications

RYŠAVÝ, O. BUREŠ, F.

Original Title

A Graph Representation for Use Case Specifications

Type

journal article - other

Language

English

Original Abstract

Use cases represent widespread industrial approach to formulation and refinement of requirements specification on a system. Although in the last decade several formal representations of use cases were defined there is still gap between their practical use and those theories. This paper provides a formulation of semantics for use cases that is based on the theory of hierarchical graphs arguing that the definition despite its simplicity is powerful enough to represent all common aspects related with use case concepts. Use case specification is divided into three levels. At the bottom level each use case is considered as a flat graph of events. The middle level shapes use cases into episodes enabling to identify and reuse common fragments. The top level depicts interaction between actors and the modeled system through use case entities. Involving hierarchical graphs enables specifying all three levels in the consistent way and provides necessary abstraction on higher levels while all details is maintained in the bottom level.

Keywords

formal methods, hierarchical graphs, object-oriented methodology, requirement specification, software engineering, use cases

Authors

RYŠAVÝ, O.; BUREŠ, F.

RIV year

2004

Released

26. 3. 2004

ISBN

1109-2750

Periodical

WSEAS Transactions on Computers

Year of study

2004

Number

3

State

Hellenic Republic

Pages from

686

Pages to

690

Pages count

5

BibTex

@article{BUT45716,
  author="Ondřej {Ryšavý} and František {Bureš}",
  title="A Graph Representation for Use Case Specifications",
  journal="WSEAS Transactions on Computers",
  year="2004",
  volume="2004",
  number="3",
  pages="686--690",
  issn="1109-2750"
}