XX. Using Conceptual Graphs to Analyze Multiple Views Of Software Requirements

This chapter describes an application of conceptual graphs to support software requirements development — the process of determining what software needs exist and how those needs will be filled. As a human knowledge and experience-based activity, requirements development is an appropriate domain for applying formal models of cognitive structures. This chapter introduces the following contributions to the theory and practice in conceptual graphs: a. The ability to represent a conceptual graph that changes over time, using a new class of node called a demon node. b. A structure to partially manipulate informal (external) information (i.e., information not expressed in conceptual graphs), by introducing a special referent form called a private referent. c. The ability to obtain a conceptual graph representation from a requirements specification written in one of several common notations. d. A framework using conceptual graphs in the analysis of software requirements that effectively captures the overlap between multiple views. The chapter sections are organized as follows: XXX.2 discusses the general problem of software requirements, for those readers unfamiliar with this aspect of software development. XXX.3 describes two extensions to conceptual graphs that are desirable for capturing requirements. XXX.4 explains how conceptual graphs (as extended) are used to capture requirements. XXX.5 outlines the framework in which multiple views are analyzed. XXX.6 shows some partial results for an example set of requirements.