Process and system for automatic generation of functional architecture documents and software design and analysis specification documents from natural language

• US 20170003937A1
• Filed: 04/28/2016
• Published: 01/05/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nadia Analia Huebra
• Original Assignee: Nadia Analia Huebra
• Inventors: Huebra, Nadia Analia
• Granted Patent: US 10,303,441 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/211 Syntactic parsing, e.g. based on context-free grammar [CFG] or unification grammars
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/268 Morphological analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/73 Program documentation

Abstract

The present invention is a computer-implemented system and method for automatic generation of Functional Architecture, business, analysis and software design documents based on phrases expressed in natural language.

Eligible languages and their syntactic and grammatical features can be entered into the system. The system receives the description of the case in natural language, in one of the eligible languages, through an input/output device. The processor automatically analyses the description, automatically extracts the functional components from its morphosyntactic structure and automatically generates functional architecture documents for use in industry. Based on the functional components of the text, the processor automatically generates design components in order to produce business, analysis, and software design specification documents.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for generating Functional Architecture documents from phrases expressed in natural language that describe a case, which are stored in a database memory 130, characterized by the following stages:

A. using an Input/Output Device 120 to upload the MAS Metamodel into the Database Memory 130.

B. using the Language User Interface 121 (of the Input/Output Device 120) to input the eligible languages, the grammatical and syntactic features of each eligible language and storing those data in the Database Memory 130;

C. using the Case User Interface 122 (of the display device 120) to input the description of “

the case”

as text in one of the natural languages selected from the list of eligible languages from Stage B and then storing them in the Database Memory 130;

D. identifying the simple sentences of the case that correspond to the steps from Stage C and using the Case User Interface 122 (of the Input/Output Device 120) to upload them so they can then be stored in the Database Memory 130;

E. automatically identifying the functional components based on the simple sentences from Stage D, by means of a Processor 150 configured as an Automatic Sentence Analyzer 151 and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

F. automatically generating the functional architecture documents based on the functional components from Stage E, by means of a Processor 150 configured as a Document Generator 153, using the graphical notation defined specifically for this type of Document.

2. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that stage A consists of the following substages:

A1. Storing the MAS Metamodel in the Database Memory 130, which defines the logic that the Processor 150 will use to generate the analysis and design documents. This logic includes the automatic generation of Performer Words, Performable Words and Performance Words, based on transitive verbs.

A2. Storing the MAS logic for Morphosyntactic rules in the Database Memory 130, which establishes that every sentence in natural language can be structured based on a) the questions logic;

it defines to which question (When, Who, What, How, Where) the word within a simple sentence belongs, b) the step type logic;

it defines what type of verb comprises the What question (FX, CC, QS, L, F) and c) the words logic;

it defines the type of word.

3. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that stage B consists of the following substages:

B1. using the Input/Output Device 120 to enter the order of adjectives of the chosen eligible language and storing it in the Database Memory 130;

B2. using the Input/Output Device 120 to enter the special words of the chosen eligible language, which can be found on the text of the simple sentences from Stage D and are to be excluded from the list of functional components, and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

B3. using the Input/Output Device 120 to enter the grouping words of the chosen eligible language, which are used to link functional components that contain more than one word and can be found in the text of the simple sentences from Stage D, and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

B4. using the Input/Output Device 120 to enter the verb endings of the infinitive verbs of the chosen eligible language, which can be found in the text of the simple sentences from Stage D, and storing them in the Database Memory 130.

4. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that stage C consists of the following substages:

C1. choosing the language in which the case is described, from the eligible languages defined in Stage B, using the Input/Output Device 120 configured as a Case User Interface 122;

C3. identifying the Steps of the case by applying the Step Type logic defined in Substage A2 and storing them in the Database Memory 130.

5. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that stage C consists of identifying the components that structure the context of “

the case”

, layers, resources, processes, subprocesses and moments, and storing them in the Database Memory 130.

6. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that stage D consists of the following substages:

D1. answering the questions Who, What, Where, How and When for each of the steps of “

the case”

identified in Stage B and storing the answers as text in a database memory;

D2. concatenating the text of the answers from each step into a simple sentence and storing said sentence as text in a database memory.

7. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that stage E consists of deconstructing the simple sentence into words, characterizing them according to the chosen language and identifying the functional components of the simple sentence and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

8. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that, in Stage E, a user adds functional components that are not present in the list of functional components identified automatically from simple sentences.

9. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that, in Stage E, the user adds the formula expressions that describe the mathematical behavior of “

the case”

for all CC- and FX-type steps.

10. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that Morphosyntactic Rules defined in Substage A1 are applied in Stage E, based on which the Processor 150 excludes the specific words stated in the Rule and creates the new functional components for the cases of transitive verbs:

a functional component, the name of which is the verb plus the agentive suffix “

ER” and

a functional component, the name of which is the verb plus the suffix “

BLE”

.

11. The method in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that stage F consists of the following substages:

F1. applying the Morphosyntactic rules defined in Substage A2, based on which the Processor 150 excludes from the functional components the specific words stated in the Rule and creates the new functional components for the cases of transitive verbs;

a functional component, the name of which is the verb plus the agentive suffix “

ER” and

a functional component, the name of which is the verb plus the suffix “

BLE”

.

F2. defining the graphical notation that is to be used in the Functional Architecture diagrams, using the Formats, Graphical Notation, and STD Sentences User Interface 123 of the Input/Output Device 120, indicating the graphical component to be used in the diagram for each functional component, according to the corresponding word type, and storing them in the Database Memory 130.

F3. Generating the Functional Architecture documents using the Processor 150, configured as a Document Generator 153, based on the functional components stored in the Database Memory 130, using the notation defined in Substage F2, and displaying them on the Input/Output Device 120;

12. A computer-implemented method for generating software design specification documents from phrases expressed in natural language that describe a case, which are stored in a database memory 130, characterized by the following stages:

A. using an Input/Output Device 120 to upload the MAS Metamodel into the Database Memory 130.

B. using the Language User Interface 121 (of the Input/Output Device 120) to enter the eligible languages, the grammatical and syntactical features of each eligible language and storing those data in the Database Memory 130;

C. using the Case User Interface 122 (of the display device 120) to enter the description of “

the case”

as text in one of the natural languages selected from the list of eligible languages from Stage B and then storing them in the Database Memory 130;

D. identifying the simple sentences of the case that correspond to the steps from Stage C and using the Case User Interface 122 (of the Input/Output Device 120) to upload them so they can then be stored in the Database Memory 130;

E. automatically identifying the functional components based on the simple sentences from Stage D, by means of a Processor 150 configured as an Automatic Sentence Analyzer 151 and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

F. automatically generating the functional architecture documents based on the functional components from Stage E, by means of a Processor 150 configured as a Document Generator 153, using the graphical notation defined specifically for this type of Document.

E. automatically identifying the design components based on the functional components from Stage E, by means of a Processor 150 configured as an Automatic Software Designer 152 and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

H. using the Formats, Graphical Notations and STD Sentences User Interface 123 (of the display device 120) to enter the output formats of the business, analysis and design documents, the parameters of standard sentences for the requirements and the graphical notation for design diagrams and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

I. automatically generating the business documents based on the simple sentences from Stage D, the analysis documents based on the functional components from Stage E, and the design documents based on the design components from Stage F, by means of a Processor 150 configured as a Document Generator 153, applying the Formats, Graphical Notations and STD Sentences defined in Stage G;

13. The method in accordance with claim 12, characterized in that stage G consists of the following substages:

G1. selecting and creating groups of functional components, their classes and inheritance relationships, and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

G2. creating formula classes based on FX- and CC-Type Steps and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

G3. creating domain classes based on QA-Type Steps and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

G4. creating relationship classes based on L-Type Steps and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

G5. creating operation classes based on F-Type Steps and storing them in the Database Memory 130;

14. The method in accordance with claim 12, characterized in that, in Stage E, a user adds error, validation and warning messages.

15. The method in accordance with claim 12, characterized in that stage I consists of the following substages:

I1. generating Business documents

I2. generating Analysis documents

I3. generating Software Design documents

16. The method in accordance with claim 15, characterized in that Stage I1 generates the business documents by means of the following actions:

a) ordering dimensions, temporal activities and simple sentences;

b) consecutively joining the previously ordered components; and

c) displaying the business documents documents on the Input/Output Device 120.

17. The method in accordance with claim 15, characterized in that Stage 12 generates the analysis documents by means of the following actions:

a) assembling global functional requirements, defining global requirements for NOUN components and defining global requirements for VERB components.

a) assembling detailed functional requirements, defining detailed requirements for NOUN, PERSON, VERB and DO components; and

c) displaying the analysis documents documents on the Input/Output Device 120.

18. The method in accordance with claim 15, characterized in that Stage 13 generates the design documents documents and displays them on the Input/Output Device 120.

19. The method in accordance with claim 12, characterized in that, in Stage H, a user can use templates to compose the structure of the text of the functional analysis documents of “

the case”

, using the Formats, Graphical Notation and STD Sentences User Interface 123 of the Input/Output Device 120, to then store them in the Database Memory 130.

20. The method in accordance with claim 12, characterized in that, in Stage I, a user stores the design components of “

the case”

in extensible markup language (xmi) format.

21. A system for generating functional architecture documents and business, analysis and software design specification documents from descriptions expressed in natural language phrases that describe a case, which are stored in a database, composed of the following:

an input/output device 120, configured as a Language User Interface 121, a Case User Interface 122, a Formats, Graphical Notation and STD Sentences User Interface 123, and a Document Display User Interface 124, to enter the eligible languages and their structure, to enter the description of “

the case”

in natural language, to enter the formats and graphical notations for document generation, and to display the functional architecture documents and the business, analysis and software design specification documents;

a main memory 140 connected to the input/output device 120, which interacts with the processor 150, configured for volatile storage of the description of the case, the functional components, the design components and the functional architecture documents and the business, analysis and software design specification documents;

a processor 150 configured to receive at least one description in natural language from the user, in which said description includes the case and identifies the steps of the case;

the aforementioned processor, configured as an automatic sentence analyzer 151, for creating simple sentences that correspond to the steps of the case and analyzing them to automatically generate functional components based on the simple sentences;

the aforementioned processor, configured as an automatic software designer 152, for identifying the design components of the case based on the functional components; and

,

the aforementioned processor, configured as a document generator 153, for generating functional architecture documents and business, analysis and software design specification documents based on the functional components and the design components;

a database memory 130 connected to the processor 150, configured to statically store 160 a MAS Metamodel 161, Languages, Words and Morphosyntactic Rules 162 and Formats, Graphical Notation and STD Sentences 163, and also configured to dynamically store 170 Simple Sentences and Questions 171, Functional Components 172 and Design Components 173.