AUTOMATED SUPPORT FOR MODELING OO SOFTWARE

A basic problem of software development is how to derive executable so ftware components from requirements, and how this process could be sys tematized. The object-oriented approach provides a common paradigm thr oughout the software development process from analysis to implementati on, enabling a smooth shift from one phase to another and use of a wid e spectrum of tools. Current object-oriented CASE tools support variou s graphical notations for modeling an application from different persp ectives, for consistency checking between models, for storing models i n a repository, and for generating documents and code from models. How ever, the level of built-in automation is relatively low as far as the actual development process is concerned. In object-oriented analysis and design, or OOAD, dynamic modeling aims at specifying the dynamic b ehavior of objects. For an object whose role is to control other objec ts, specification of its dynamic behavior can often be given in the fo rm of a finite-state machine. A simple state machine consists of state s associated with actions, and transitions associated with events. The actions of a state are executed when this state becomes the object's current state.