Tool for developing software using the method of John C. Munson.

 7E550F - pseudocode control flow visualization

In "Software Specification and Design" John C. Munson describes a process for developing software by successive refinement. The refinement is performed using a series of interconnected living documents describing the system.

Defining programs in this way allows for complete traceability from the user-level specification all the way down to code. It also allows for a variety of statistics about the quality of the resulting system to be computed. It can even be used to certify programs for use against various operation profiles generated from real-world usage or statistical models of usage.

Module Pseudocode Language

The munson tool provides a parser, analyzer, and visualizer for a module defintion pseudocode language. An example module for a Chip8 CPU emulator is shown below:

MODULE ParseOpcode
  DESCRIPTION
    Takes an opcode as a 16-bit decimal value and returns the decoded opcode
    information in a record for further processing.
  END DESCRIPTION

  TYPES
    OperationType IS (CLS, RET, SYS)

    DecodedOpcode IS RECORD
      Type IS OperationType
      X IS Decimal Whole Range [0, 15]
      Y IS Decimal Whole Range [0, 15]
      Address IS Decimal Whole Range [200, 4095]
    END RECORD
  END TYPES

  PARAMETERS
    Opcode IS Decimal Whole Range [0, 65535] IN
    Result IS DecodedOpcode OUT
  END PARAMETERS

  ERRORS
    InvalidOperation("Invalid opcode #{Opcode as 4 digit, 0 padded hex}")
  END ERRORS

  BODY
    IF upper 4 bits of Opcode = 0 THEN
      IF lower 8 bits of Opcode = 16#EO# THEN
        Result.Type := CLS
      ELSIF lower 8 bits of Opcode = 16#EE# THEN
        Result.Type := RET
      ELSE
        Result.Type := SYS
        Result.Address := lower 12 bits of Opcode
      END IF
    ELSE
      ERROR InvalidOperation
    END IF
  END BODY
END MODULE

Analysis of this module shows the following properties:

Module: ParseOpcode
	[Call Graph]
		In degree: 0
		Out degree: 0
	[Numerical Complexity]
		External: 29 bits
			Inbound: 16 bits
			Outbound: 12 bits
			Error: 1 bits
		Internal: 12 bits
			Data Type: 12 bits
			Variables: 0 bits
			Constants: 0 bits
		Total: 41 bits
	[Control Complexity]
		Paths: 4
		Conditional Blocks: 6
		Unconditional Blocks: 1
		Method Calls: 0
		Cohesion: 0.17

Running the visualizer displays the following control-flow diagram for the module:

incoming(1): software tools

• source code

Last update on 7E550F, edited 1 times. 2/2thh