DFDVis: A visual analytics system for understanding the semantics of data flow diagram

Abstract

Data flow diagram (DFD), as a special kind of data, is a design artifact in both requirement analysis and structured analysis in software development. However, rigorous analysis of DFD requires a formal semantics. Formal representation of DFD and its formal semantics will help to reduce inconsistencies and confusion. The logical structure of DFD can be described using formalism of Calculus of Communicating System (CCS). With a finite number of states based on CCS, state space methods will help a lot in analysis and verification of the behavior of the systems. But the number of states of even a relatively small system is often very great that is called state explosion. In this paper, we present a visual system which combines Formal methods and visualization techniques so as to help the researchers to understand and analyze the system described by the DFD regardless of the problem of state explosion.