Traceability of requirements and consistency verification of UML use case, activity and Class diagram: A Formal approach

Abstract

UML being semi formal in nature, it lacks formal syntax and hence automated verification of analysis and design specifications cannot be done. Verification at early phases of SDLC has gained significant importance because of the possibility of early error detection resulting in reduced costs and time to market. To address this, in this paper we propose a formal grammar for the three of the commonly used UML diagrams - Use Case diagram, which is used to capture functional requirement; Activity diagram, which is used to diagrammatically depict the textual descriptions, or flow of events of use case diagram, and Class diagram, which is used to depict the structural aspect of design. In this paper, we have proposed a framework for verification of the diagrams, which includes syntactic correctness, inter-diagram consistency and requirement traceability.