Structured analysis
In software engineering, structured analysis (SA) and structured design (SD) are methods for analyzing business requirements and developing specifications for converting practices into computer programs, hardware configurations, and related manual procedures.
[3] SA and SD are displayed with structure charts, data flow diagrams and data model diagrams, of which there were many variations, including those developed by Tom DeMarco, Ken Orr, Larry Constantine, Vaughn Frick, Ed Yourdon, Steven Ward, Peter Chen, and others.
During the 1980s, tools began to appear which both automated the drawing of the diagrams, and kept track of the things drawn in a data dictionary".
Structured analysis typically creates a hierarchy employing a single abstraction mechanism.
The structured analysis method can employ IDEF (see figure), is process driven, and starts with a purpose and a viewpoint.
One reason for the popularity of structured analysis is its intuitive ability to communicate high-level processes and concepts, whether in single system or enterprise levels.
Discovering how objects might support functions for commercially prevalent object-oriented development is unclear.
In contrast to IDEF, the UML is interface driven with multiple abstraction mechanisms useful in describing service-oriented architectures (SOAs).
The result of structured analysis is a set of related graphical diagrams, process descriptions, and data definitions.
[12] De Marco's approach[13] consists of the following objects (see figure):[12] Hereby the data flow diagrams (DFDs) are directed graphs.
The DFDs model the structure of the system as a network of interconnected processes composed of functional primitives.
Most database management systems keep the data dictionary hidden from users to prevent them from accidentally destroying its contents.
[17] This typically includes the names and descriptions of various tables and fields in each database, plus additional details, like the type and length of each data element.
There is no universal standard as to the level of detail in such a document, but it is primarily a distillation of metadata about database structure, not the data itself.
The DFD is designed to show how a system is divided into smaller portions and to highlight the flow of data between those parts.
Data flow diagrams (DFDs) are one of the three essential perspectives of structured systems analysis and design method (SSADM).
The sponsor of a project and the end users will need to be briefed and consulted throughout all stages of a system's evolution.
At this stage in the software development lifecycle, after analysis and design have been performed, it is possible to automatically generate data type declarations",[25] and procedure or subroutine templates.
