JP3471867B2 - Data flow diagram creation apparatus and method - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for creating a dataflow diagram, for example, a process that appears in a layered dataflow diagram that is widely used for defining requirement specifications.
The present invention relates to a data flow diagram creation device and method for classifying and outputting each series of processes activated by the same data flow.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional hierarchical data flow diagram, a process activated by a data flow and a process for asynchronously fetching data from a data store are shown in a single drawing as shown in FIG. The drawings are mixed and the drawings have a hierarchical relationship.

[0003]

Therefore, in the conventional data flow diagram, when tracing the activation relationship of a series of processes activated by the data flow, only the data flows across the layers that do not go through a store are traced. Therefore, there is a problem in that (1) it is necessary to manually inspect a plurality of drawings individually, and (2) the extracted results are dispersed in a plurality of drawings.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional example, and creates a data flow between the elements of the lowest layer among the elements in the hierarchical data flow diagram, and creates the data flow .
It is activated by the data flow by extracting a series of processes separated by the data store from the data flow between the elements at the bottom layer and outputting the extracted series of processes as a single drawing. An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for creating a data flow diagram in which when a start-up relationship of a series of processes is traced, the series of processes can be viewed at once.

[0005]

In order to solve this problem, a data flow diagram creating apparatus of the present invention includes a compound flow including a data flow, a process, and a data store.
A first memorizer that stores the hierarchical relationship of a number dataflow diagram
Columns and of each data flow in the plurality of data flow diagrams
Second storage means for storing input / output elements, and each of the data
For each input / output element of the flow, the element
If it is outside the taflo diagram, the parent drawing
Refer to, if the element is a process, in the hierarchical relationship
Outside the data flow diagram without the parent drawing, referencing the child drawing
Optimize elements, processes without child drawings, and data stores.
Data that is extracted as a lower layer element and between the elements of the lowest layer
From the data flow between the lowest layer element logical relationship creating means that creates a flow and the created lowest layer element , pay attention to
If the input element of the data flow to be processed is a process,
The data flow whose output element is
Whether the output element of the data flow of interest is a process
For example, the data flow with the process as an input element is sequentially
It is characterized by comprising process extraction means for extracting a series of processes separated by the data store, and output means for outputting the extracted series of processes as a single data flow diagram.

[0006]

Further, the data flow diagram creating method of the present invention is
Storing a hierarchical relationship of a plurality of data flow diagrams including three components of a data flow, a process and a data store .
1 storage unit and each data in the plurality of data flow diagrams
A second storage unit for storing input / output elements of the flow
How to create a data flow diagram in a data flow diagram creation device
And read from the first and second storages.
Data flow diagram hierarchy relationship and data flow input / output elements
And the input and output elements of each data flow based on
For this, if the element is outside the dataflow diagram, then
Refers to the parent drawing in the hierarchical relationship, and the element is
If there is a parent drawing, refer to the child drawing in the hierarchical relationship
Elements outside a dataflow diagram without a child and a professional without a child drawing
Process and data store as the lowest layer elements,
The lowest layer element logical relationship creating step for creating the data flow between the elements of the lowest layer, and the created element between the lowest layer
Dataflow input element of the dataflow to be noticed
If is a process, the device that uses that process as an output element
Data flow in sequence,
If the output element is a process, the process is the input element
The data flow for the
To extract a series of separated processes into the third memory
It is characterized by including a process extracting step of storing and a series of output steps of reading out the extracted series of processes from the third storage unit and outputting as one data flow diagram.

[0008]

EXAMPLES Examples of the present invention will be described in detail below.

<Description of System Configuration> FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the entire system of an embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 10 is an input / output device having a data input unit such as a keyboard and a data output unit such as a CRT.
With 0, data can be input and edited.
Reference numeral 100 denotes a drawing input / editing unit that stores information on hierarchical drawings input from the input / output device 10 in a database 1000.
The files are created in files 1100 and 1200 to be described later provided above.

Explaining the files 1100 to 1400, 1100 is a DR file (Document Relation, hereinafter referred to as DR) for storing the hierarchical relation of the inputted drawings, and 1200 is a DD for storing the logical relation between the drawing elements.
File (Data Dictionary, hereinafter referred to as DD), 13
00 is a PDD file (Primitive Data Dictionary, which stores the logical relationship between the elements at the bottom of the drawing elements)
Hereinafter, referred to as PDD) 1400 stores N which is the logical relationship of the data flow diagram that is classified and reconfigured by the activation relationship.
It is a DD file (New Data Dictionary, hereinafter referred to as NDD).

Reference numeral 200 denotes a logical relationship creation unit for the lowest layer element which creates a logical relationship only for the element of the lowest layer based on the contents of the DR file 1100 and the DD file 1200 and stores it in the PDD file 1300.

Reference numeral 300 is a logical relationship creating section 20 for the lowest layer element.
This is a process classification unit that extracts a series of processes activated by a data flow from the PDD file 1300 obtained with 0 and stores it in the NDD file 1400.

Each of the units 100 to 300 is a computer (as a matter of course, an arithmetic processing unit, a processing memory, a control memory for storing a processing procedure represented by a flowchart described later,
And has an interface for exchanging information, etc.). Although FIG. 1 shows a keyboard as a data input unit and an input / output device 10 including a CRT as a data output unit, a scanner that reads a data flow diagram, a writing pen, a printer that prints the data flow diagram, or a communication device. Of course can be added.

<Description of Operation Example> FIG. 3 is an example of a conventional hierarchical data flow diagram. In FIG. 3, drawing A,
There are seven drawings designated C, D, F, G, O, P. Each drawing shows the data flow indicated by "→", "○"
It is composed of three components of the process indicated by and the store indicated by "=".

Therefore, (1) drawing A is the first layer, drawing C,
D is the second layer, and drawings F, G, O, and P are the third layers, and (2) data that process C outputs for processes B and C that are the constituent elements of drawing A The process b receives the flow b as an input. Further, for the data flow b, the process G of the constituent element is output in the drawing C. Further, regarding the process C and the store α which are the constituent elements of the drawing A,
The data flow e output by the process C must be stored in the store α. The two points of the logical relationship between the components of each drawing and between the layers are shown by the data flow diagram.

Processes in which the lower layer is not shown, such as processes B, E, N, etc., are the lowest layer.

(Overall Process Flow) Next, the operation procedure of this embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 2 based on FIG.

First, in step S1, the operator uses the input / output device 10 to input a hierarchical drawing as shown in FIG. 3 using the input editing unit 100, and the DR file 1100 corresponding to the hierarchical relation (1) and A DD file 1200 corresponding to the logical relationship (2) between the above constituent elements is created.

4 and 5 are views showing examples of contents of the DR and DD files created based on FIG. 3, respectively.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the contents of a DR file in which the hierarchical relationship between the drawings is represented by the relationship between the parent drawing name and the child drawing name, and FIG. 5 is between the elements that make up each drawing. It is a figure which shows the example of the content of the DD file which represented the logical relationship by the output element and the input element corresponding to drawing name and data flow name.

With respect to the notation of FIG. 5, the part indicated by 1210 is explained in detail. In the drawing A, a, b, c, d, e, f,
There is a data flow represented by g and h. this house,
“A” is a data flow from the outside of the drawing to the process C, and the output element is shown as “outside” and the input element is shown as “process C”. For data flow b, the output element is "process C" and the input element is "process B". Also,
The data flow c is a data flow flowing out of the drawing A from the process B, and the output element is shown as "process B" and the input element is shown as "outside". Further, the data flow e is a data flow from the process C to the store α, and the output element is described as “process C” and the input element is described as “store α”.

Next, in step S2 of FIG. 2, based on the contents of the DR file 1100 and the DD file 1200, a logical relationship of only the lowermost component is created and stored in the PDD file 1300. In this example, the data flow diagram shown in FIG. 6 is a drawing of only the lowermost component, and FIG. 7 is created as the PDD file 1300 as the logical relationship of only the lowermost component.

Step S2 will be described in detail below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In step S3, a series of processes activated by the data flow are extracted from the PDD file 1300 created in step S2, classified, and the results are stored in the NDD file 1400. In this example, the sequence of data flows separated by the store is
NDDs classified as shown in FIG. 8 and shown in FIG.
The file 1400 will be created.

Step S3 will be described in detail below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

Regarding steps S2 and S3,
(1) A method in which classification is performed every time one logical relationship between the constituent elements in the bottom layer is created, and (2) a method in which classification is performed after all logical relationships between constituent elements in the bottom layer are created The method (2) will be described in detail below.

(Detailed description of step S2) A detailed description of step S2 in the flowchart of FIG. 2 will be given with reference to the data flow diagram of FIG.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing an example of the processing procedure of step S2. In this process, based on the contents of the DR file 1100 and the DD file 1200, a logical relationship of only the lowest layer component is created, and the PDD file 1
This is stored in 300, and the processing of tracing the output element to the lowest layer and registering the result (steps S202 to S2)
08) and processing for tracing the input element to the lowest layer and registering the result (steps S209 to S215). Either of these two processes may be performed first, but in this example, the method of creating the output elements first will be described in detail.

Explaining the flowchart of FIG. 10, first, in step S201, one data flow is extracted from the DD file 1200. In this example, “data flow a in drawing A” indicated by 1220 which is the first element in FIG.
Take out.

In step S202, it is determined whether or not the output element of the fetched data flow is "outside",
If "outside", the process proceeds to step S203, and if not "outside", the process proceeds to step S205. In this example, since the output element of the extracted “data flow a in drawing A” is “outside”, the process proceeds to step S203. Step S2
In 03, it is determined based on the DR file 1100 whether or not there is a parent drawing. If there is a parent drawing, the process proceeds to step S204, and if not, the process proceeds to step S208. In this example, according to the DR file shown in FIG. 4, since the parent drawing does not exist in the drawing A,
The process proceeds to step S208. Step S204
Then, the parent drawing is known from the DR file 1100, one identical data flow shown in the parent drawing is taken out, and the process returns to step S202.

In step S205, it is determined whether or not the output element of the fetched data flow is a store. If it is a store, the process proceeds to step S208, and if it is not the store, the process proceeds to step S206. In step S206, it is determined based on the DR file 1100 whether or not there is a child drawing in the output element program of the extracted data flow.
Proceed to 208. In step S207, the DR file 1
The child drawing is known from 100, one identical data flow shown in the child drawing is taken out, and the process returns to step S202.

In step S208, the output element is PDD.
Register in the file 1300. The output element registered here is either (1) "outer" when there is no parent drawing, (2) store, or (3) the process when there is no child drawing, and is always the lowest element. In this example, the output element of the “data flow a in the drawing A” corresponds to the above (1), and “outside” is stored in the item of the output element in the logical relationship indicated by 1310 in FIG. 7. .

In step S209, it is determined whether the input element of the fetched data flow is "outside",
If “outside”, the process proceeds to step S210, and if not “outside”, the process proceeds to step S212. In this example, since the input element of the extracted “data flow a in drawing A” is the process C, the process proceeds to step S212. In step S210, it is determined based on the DR file 1100 whether or not there is a parent drawing. If there is a parent drawing, the process proceeds to step S211, if not, the process proceeds to step S215. In step S211, D
Knowing the parent drawing from the R file 1100, extracting one identical data flow shown in the parent drawing, step S2
Return to 09.

In step S212, it is determined whether or not the input element of the fetched data flow is a store. If it is a store, the process proceeds to step S215, and if it is not a store, the process proceeds to step S213. In this example, since the input element of the "data flow a in drawing A" that has been extracted is the process C, the process proceeds to step S213. Step S2
In step 13, it is determined whether or not there is a child drawing in the input element process of the fetched data flow based on the DR file 1100. If there is a child drawing, the process proceeds to step S214, and if not, the process proceeds to step S215. In this example, according to the DR file shown in FIG. 4, since the child drawing C of the process C exists, the process proceeds to step S214.

In step S214, the DR file 11
The child drawing is known from 00, one identical data flow shown in the child drawing is taken out, and the process returns to step S209. In this example, the same data flow shown in the child drawing C is “data flow a in drawing C” indicated by 1230 in FIG.
This is taken out from the DD file 1200, and the process returns to step S209.

Continuing with the description of the present example, since the input element of “data flow a in drawing C” indicated by 1230 in FIG. 5 is process F and is not “outside”, the process proceeds from step S209 to step S212. Since it is not a store, it proceeds from step S212 to step S213. According to the DR file shown in FIG. 4, since the child drawing F exists in the input element process F, the process proceeds to step S214 again. The same data flow shown in the child drawing F is indicated by 1240 in FIG.
Data flow a ”in the DD file 12
00, and the process returns to step S209.

Further, the input element of the "data flow a in the drawing F" indicated by 1240 in FIG. 4 is the process H and is not "outside", so the process proceeds from the step S209 to the step S212. S212
To step S213. According to the DR file shown in FIG. 4, since the child drawing does not exist in the input element process H, the process proceeds to step S215.

In step S215, the input element is PDD.
Register in the file 1300. The input element registered here is either (1) "outer" when there is no parent drawing, (2) the store, or (3) the process when there is no child drawing, and is always the lowest element. In this example, the input element process H of the “data flow a in the drawing F” corresponds to the above (3), and the “process H” is included in the item of the input element in the logical relationship indicated by 1310 in FIG. Is stored.

Up to this point, a new logical relationship between the elements in the lowermost layer is created for one data flow extracted in step S201. In this example, for the data flow a, “outside” of the output element and “process H” of the input element
That is, the logical relationship between the elements in the lowest layer is newly created.

In step S216, the DD file 12
It is determined whether or not there is an uncreated data flow in 00, and if there is an uncreated data flow, the process returns to step S201, the data flow is extracted again, and the processes in and after step S202 above are repeated. If not, the process ends. In this example, it is the data flows 1220, 1230, and 1240 in FIG. 5 that have been extracted and completed in the DD file 1200 shown in FIG. Since it remains, the process returns to step S201, and 1250 in FIG.
The process is further continued for the "data flow b in the drawing A" indicated by.

In this example, the data flow diagram shown in FIG. 6 is a drawing of only the lowermost component, and the DD file 12
When the above process is completed for all the data flows in 00, the PDD file 1300 shown in FIG. 7 is created.

(Detailed description of step S3) A detailed description of step S3 in the flowchart of FIG. 2 will be given with an example of the data flow diagram of FIG.

FIG. 11 is a flow chart showing an example of the processing procedure of step S3. This processing is to extract a series of processes activated by the data flow from the PDD file 1300 created in step S2 of FIG. 2, classify the processes, and store the results in the NDD file 1400.

To explain the flowchart of FIG. 11, first, in step S301, a variable N for assigning a unit drawing name to a classified process is initialized to 1. In step S302, one data flow is extracted from the PDD file 1300, and the drawing name N is used for the NDD file 1
Register with 300. In this example, the “data flow a” indicated by 1310 in FIG. 7 is taken out and N = 1, so the data flow indicated by 1410 in FIG. 9 with the drawing name 1 is registered.

After step S303, the output element and the input element of the registered data flow are traced to extract processes having the same activation factor. In step S303, it is determined whether the output element of the focused data flow is a process. If the output element is a process, the process proceeds to step S304, and the data flow having the output element process as an input element is PDD.
Extract all from file 1300, ND with drawing name N
It is registered in the D file 1400, and the process proceeds to step S305. If the output element is not a process, the process directly proceeds to step S305. In this example, the output element of the “data flow a” shown by 1410 in FIG. 9 which is currently focused is “outer” and is not a process, so the process directly proceeds to step S305.

In step S305, it is determined whether or not the input element of the data flow of interest is a process. If the input element is a process, the process proceeds to step S306, all the data flows having the input element process as the output element are taken out from the PDD file 1300, registered in the NDD file 1400 with the drawing name N, and step S3.
Proceed to 07. If the output element is not the process, the process directly proceeds to step S307. In this example, the input element of the “data flow a” indicated by 1410 in FIG. 9 which is currently focused is the process H, and since it is the process, the process proceeds to step S306. In step S306, "data flow m" having process H as an output element from FIG.
(1320 in FIG. 7), “Data flow n” (13 in FIG. 7)
30) is taken out, and respectively 1420 and 1430 of FIG.
Is registered, and the process proceeds to step S307. N at this point
In FIG. 9, which is an example of the DD file 1400, 1410,
All of the three elements 1420 and 1430 are registered as the drawing 1, and 1410 "data flow a" is focused on.

In step S307, it is determined whether or not the next data flow still exists in NDD. If there is, the process proceeds to step S308, and the next data flow is newly focused. If not, the process proceeds to step S309. In this example, attention is paid to 1410 in FIG. 9 at the present time, and since 1420 (1430 as the next data flow) exists as the next data flow, the process proceeds to step S308, and 142 in FIG. 9 is newly added.
Attention will be paid to the “data flow m” indicated by 0.

By repeating the above steps S303 to S308, a series of processes having the same start condition is PD.
NDD file 14 extracted from D file 1300
00 with the same drawing name. In this example, the logical relationship indicated by 1441 in FIG. 8 as Drawing 1 is 1 in FIG.
It will be registered as Drawing 1 as indicated by 440. At this point, the extraction for Drawing 1 is completed, and the process proceeds to step S309.

In step S309, the PDD file 1
3. Determine if there is a data flow in 300 that has not yet been retrieved. If there is, the process proceeds to step S310, increments N indicating the drawing name by one, and then proceeds to step S302.
Then, the processing of steps S302 to S308 of tracing the input element and the output element of the data is repeated. If not, the process ends. In this example, when the extraction of the drawing 1 is completed, the data flows a, m, n, i,
Since the data flows other than j, e, k, and o still remain, the process proceeds to step S310, N is set to 2, and then the process returns to step S302. In step S302, the first element of the remaining data flows, "data flow b"
Is newly taken out and registered as the drawing 2 in the NDD file 1400 of FIG. 9, and the processing is continued thereafter according to the above description.

In this example, the processes are classified as shown in FIG. 8, and the NDD file 1400 shown in FIG. 9 is created.

Although L, M, B and N shown as processes on the drawing 2 in the NDD file are described in three drawings in different layers in the original drawing (DD file),
These are processes activated by a series of data flows, and they are created as one drawing in this embodiment.

In the present embodiment, the processing has been described as to the inside of the drawing A (FIG. 3) of the first layer with the data flow of external input / output as the boundary. The same processing is possible in the system to which the function is connected, and it is also possible to create a single data flow diagram with the external input / output data flow as the boundary, and change the "store" in this example to "outside". It can be changed and processed.

Further, the present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of one device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0055]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Create a data flow between the lowest layer of elements in a layered data flow diagram, and create the lowest layer
The series of processes separated by the data store are extracted from the data flow between the elements of the , and the series of processes extracted by the data flow are output as a single drawing. When tracking activation relationships, the effect is that you can see the series of processes at once.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the entire system of the present embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a file creation process in this embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a drawing creation example of a data flow diagram.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a DR file.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a DD file.

FIG. 6 is an example of a drawing in which only the elements in the lowermost layer are extracted from FIG. 3 and TE is created.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a PDD file.

FIG. 8 is a drawing example in which the processes in FIG. 6 are classified.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of an NDD file.

10 is a flowchart showing a detailed operation of step S2 of FIG.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a detailed operation of step S3 of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 Input / output device 100 Drawing input editing unit 200 Logical relation creating unit 300 at the bottom layer 300 Process classification unit 1000 Database 1100 DR (Document Relation) file 1200 DD (Data Dictionary) file 1300 PDD (Primitive Data Dictionary) file 1400 NDD (New Data Dictionary) file

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (72) Inventor Junji Yamada 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc. (56) Reference JP-A-4-54528 (JP, A) JP-A-3 −248227 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06F 17/50 G06F 9/06 530

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A hierarchical relationship of a plurality of data flow diagrams including three components of a data flow, a process and a data store .
A first storage means for storing the relationship, and input / output of each data flow in the plurality of data flow diagrams
The second storage means for storing elements and the input / output elements of each data flow are required.
If the element is outside the data flow diagram, the hierarchical relationship
If the element is a process, refer to the parent drawing
Refers to a child drawing in a relationship, and
Elements outside the raw diagram, processes without child drawings, and data
From the lowest layer element logical relationship creating means that extracts the store as the lowest layer element and creates the data flow between the lowest layer elements, and the created data flow between the lowest layer elements ,
If the input element of the desired data flow is a process,
Sequentially follow the data flow with the process as an output element
The output element of the data flow of interest is the process
If there is a data flow with the process as an input element
A data flow comprising: a process extracting means for sequentially tracing a series of processes separated by a data store; and an output means for outputting the extracted series of processes as a single data flow diagram. Drawing device. 2. A hierarchical relationship of a plurality of data flow diagrams including three components of a data flow, a process and a data store .
A first storage unit for storing a member, and the plurality of data flows
A second note that stores the input / output elements of each data flow in the figure
Data in a data flow diagram creation device with a memory
A method of creating a flow chart, the data flow read from the first and second storages.
Based on diagram hierarchy and data flow input / output elements
For each input / output element of each data flow
If the element is outside the data flow diagram,
Refer to the parent drawing in the clerk, and if the element is a process,
Refer to the child drawing in the hierarchical relationship, and
Elements outside the dataflow diagram and processes without child drawings,
From the data flow between the lowest layer element created by extracting the data store as the lowest layer element and creating the data flow between the lowest layer elements, and the created data flow between the lowest layer elements ,
If the input element of the desired data flow is a process,
Sequentially follow the data flow with the process as an output element
The output element of the data flow of interest is the process
If there is a data flow with the process as an input element
A process extracting step of sequentially tracing a series of processes separated by the data store and storing the extracted series of processes in a third storage unit ; and extracting the series of extracted processes from the third storage unit.
An output step of reading out and outputting as one data flow diagram, a data flow diagram creating method.