Tabular Expressions in Software Engineering

Tabular expressions (tables) have been used in the software development process for more than twenty years. In addition, research has been ongoing to develop semantics for tabular expressions. At this stage in the history of tabular expressions we see a slight split between those working to improve the semantic understanding of tables, and those using tables to document real industrial software projects. Those conducting research in the semantics of tables have their sights set on expressive mathematical models of tables that are general enough to cope with all known forms of tabular expressions, and that can be used as the basis for software tool support of tables. The other group uses tables in real-world projects under the normal constraints of schedule, budget and the skill set of current software professionals. Thus, champions of tabular expressions for use in industry are focussed on developing notations and approaches that will be accepted and useful in an industrial setting. To bridge both worlds, we present here a brief history of tabular expressions, motivation for the development of semantics for tables, a description of a semantic definition of tables, and a discussion on notation and use of tables in practice based on many years of experience of using tables in industrial software development projects. Key-words: condition table, function table, tabular expression, tabular semantics, formal specification, documentation