A Knowledge-Based Approach for Generating UML Sequence Diagrams from Operation Contracts

摘要

Object-interaction design in a software development process is a complex task requiring comprehensive object-oriented design knowledge. An inexperienced system analyst often spends a lot of time and extensive efforts to achieve a good design. This paper presents a knowledge-based framework for facilitating object-interaction design, taking into account several commonly occurring design issues, including realization of associations and compositions, handling object creation, and determining appropriate object access paths. Along with a domain model, requirement artifacts specified in the form of operation contracts are encoded using Web Ontology Language. Generic objectinteraction design solutions are represented as Jena rules, which can be instantiated into many domain-specific application contexts. Application of the framework to generation of object-interaction designs, represented as sequence diagrams, is illustrated. An evaluation schema is proposed and an evaluation example is demonstrated.