Candidate Projects, Fall 1998

91.523 Software Engineering I

Professor Lechner

I. Ongoing legacy code projects:

Candidates for additional updating, integrating and testing during Fall 1998. References to documentation are given below; all are in project directory tree $CASE/9xx52x/project/*../doc, where $CASE = /usr/proj3/case.

A. BDE Enhancements

bdesym: The new bde version in $CASE/98s522/bde2java/hhuang created unused ghost variables which maintain redundant tokenized copies of text lines in new tables SY and TK. All code in bde continue to refer to the text string field of table XB via pr_get_str. This version needs to be merged into bde's main CVS branch, then migrated in small testable increments toward use of SY and TK, with thorough regression testing on each.

Goal: All users of bde text refer to text (XB), symbol (SY) and token (TK) classes; no references to XB.text.

Constraint: Maintain original XB.text fields as ghost copies.

bdecpp: prototype new bdeunix architecture based on architecture which adapts bde to bde2vcpp classes and use of gencpp (below).

Goal: Adapt bde modules to use gencpp-supplied class declarations.

Constraints: (1) re-use existing code and state models; (2) preserve bde's GUI look and feel and persistent data format.

bde2vcpp: Add bendpoints and captions to $CASE/98su591/bde2vcpp, where jvinarub used STL to minimize MFC dependency of RPoonsup's version ($CASE/97f522/bde2vcpp/rpoonsup/98s523) and extended it to inherit from an Active Document base class.

bde2java: Redesign of the Java version of bde to use gencpp.

bdelog: Integrate bdelog with the current bde main branch. Build and test a new version of bde based on genlog.

Goals: (1) provide field-level change logging and playback for debugging history and regression testing ; (2) Maintain a window of recent past history of editing and database transactions during bdelog execution.

B. CHGEN Enhancements:

gen_merge: Gen_v10log generated get-field methods that save change-log histories but can not yet play them back.

Goals; Extend gen version 10log with playback methods; merge gendfltSupers and gendfltVals into gen_v10log.

Constraints: A schema modification is required for gendfltVals (replace altName by dfltvalue string). This should not affect existing projects. (See $CASE/gen/97sgenmerge/aareadme.)

gencpp continuation:

Goal: re-implement chgen with tables and child-sets derived from STL container templates and table row structs replaced by classes and pr_util methods wrapped in get/set access methods.

Constraints: (1) retain gen_v10log upward-compatible persistent ASCII database and change-log format; (2) maximize compatibility between C++ and Java-style class declarations; (3) derive method interfaces from life-cycle state models for active classes.

Incremental builds of gencpp (using ghost variables for testability)

Phase 1: Generate a C++ I/O stream version of pr_load and pr_dump.

Phase 2: Generate a STL Vector container for each table type;

Phase 3: Generate STL List containers for parent-child relations.

bde2vcpp as a test of gencpp: Implement a test case for gencpp by modifying bde2vcpp so that it accepts revised class declarations generated by gencpp, and works at its current level of diagram editing capability.

C. Object life cycle support for browsing and animation:

(see existing project docs)

jpsim: Implement test suite of demos for the Juice Plant simulation.: jp2bde - use bde to animate Juice Plant simulation display.; bde state model conversion to block diagram browser bdb.; sm2bde - use bde to animate object life cycle simulation.; bde2lcp - apply lcp interpreter to bde state models.

II. New startup projects: (Projects for 98f522 or 98f523)

bde2htm tool extensions to convert manuscript to html (contingent on A-W interest in a hypertext version of Michael Jackson: SW Requirements and Specifications - a lexicon of practice, principles, prejudices, A-W 1995).

Handheld auto license plate reader - Software to manage parking lot timing database (contingent on scanner and OCR software availability)

Online hypertext data dictionary - For UML's Student Information System. The content, extracted from COBOL files, now exists in MS Access.

SIS COBOL file conversion - Using a GEN-based relational schema pair (contingent on administrative approval)

Graphic documentation - for BDE, GEN, and LCP using DRC's Visual Magic UML toolset (contingent on getting Visual Magic for department educational use).

Visualization of C++ Code Complexity - Import a C++ parser and use it to extract a cflow-style meta-database, for use in static analysis and diagram extraction.

State Diagram Conversion:- Implement a converter of bde-generated State Transition Diagrams (STD's) from Mealy to Moore type [OLC: p. 35: Mealy FSM: Action = f(State); Moore FSM: Action = f(State, Event Type).