A Meta-Model for Textual Use Case Description.

Abstract

A Use Case is a specification of interactions involving a system and external actors of that system. The capability for use case modeling has been integrated to the Unified Modeling Language (UML) since its inception. However, use cases are only defined at an abstract level, as the UML Specification does not discuss use case description in text form. In this paper, we propose an abstract syntax for textual use case description as a meta-model extension of the UML Specification. This meta-model is based on elements commonly found in use case templates. The meta-model also includes OCL constraints for ensuring consistency with the UML specification.

Natural-language Scenario Descriptions for Testing Core Language Models of Domain-Specific Languages

“…In addition, there is a first SysML integration available for the metamodel in (Goknil et al, 2008). The requirements metamodel in (Somé, 2009) would allow for an alignment with UML-compliant use cases and a corresponding, alternative textual concrete syntax.…”

“…Requirements metamodels: The requirements metamodel defined in Section 4 could be extended by integrating it with closely related metamodels (Goknil et al, 2008;Somé, 2009). A consolidated requirements metamodel using the proposal by (Goknil et al, 2008) would benefit from additional concepts such as requirements relations, status, and priority.…”

“…Concrete syntax: Following related approaches to textual use-case modeling and acceptance testing (Wynne and Hellesøy, 2012;Goknil et al, 2008;Somé, 2009), we provide a textual concrete-syntax for the domain user of the requirements language. In this way, the domain expert is able to define scenariobased requirements via natural-language statements (an example is shown in Listing 1).…”

“…Figure 6 shows the metamodel of our scenariodescription language. The main concepts and concept relationships were identified by studying related work on requirements metamodels (Goknil et al, 2008;Somé, 2009) and acceptance testing (Wynne and Hellesøy, 2012). Abstract syntax: Requirements are specified in terms of characteristic functionality (Features) the stakeholders request and the DSML shall implement.…”

Using Reverse Engineering to Define a Domain Model

“…Satechart diagrams, sequence diagrams, collaboration diagrams, or informal text descriptions can be used. In the present case, the POSTDATA team has used informal text descriptions (Somé, 2009) because the functionalities identified in the Websites are simple, and with this representation the use case model is easy to understand. Table 1 presents a template for the description of use-cases.…”