Publication Details
A Graph Representation for Use Case Specifications
Ryšavý Ondřej, doc. Ing., Ph.D. (DIFS)
formal methods, hierarchical graphs, object-oriented methodology, requirement
specification, software engineering, use cases
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.
@inproceedings{BUT16904,
author="František {Bureš} and Ondřej {Ryšavý}",
title="A Graph Representation for Use Case Specifications",
booktitle="Proceedings of the WSEAS International Conferences",
year="2004",
pages="686--690",
publisher="World Scientific and Engineering Academy",
address="Salzburg",
isbn="960-8052-95-5",
url="http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~rysavy/publikace/2004/formalusecases.pdf"
}