Glossaries Glossary - Calculated to Cutaway

Calculated Attribute

Calculated attributes are a type of attribute that are defined as a calculation of other attributes of the same item. They allow simple arithmetic calculations to be performed on individual items, where the inputs for the calculation are numeric attributes of the same item.

Capture

The capture process involves assimilating documents received from external or internal customers, identifying individual statements within them, and producing an initial set of requirements from them. During this process, parts of source documents may also be captured as system notes. The operations associated with capturing system notes are very similar to those associated with capturing requirements.

Category Code

A set of up to 16 category codes can be defined for a project as a means of assigning values to any and all types of information as a means of categorising them to enable searches, selections, and sorts.

Category Recognition String

A Category Recognition String (CRS) is a regular expression associated with a category code value, and is used in auto-categorisation of items. If a match for the CRS is found within the item’s text, then the item can automatically be tagged with the associated category code value.

Change History

Each item can have an edit history that records all edits to that item. Each entry in the edit history records the date and time of the edit, who edited the item, which of the attributes were changed during the edit, and the old and new values of each attribute.

Change Request

A Change Request (CHR) is a formal request to introduce an amendment, correction, or extension to a system.

Change Task

A Change Task (CHT) is an instruction placed upon a specific project engineer to make a specified set of changes or additions to a specified set of new or existing project information in order to implement a specific set of approved CHRs.

Check Parameter

Check parameters are the project-wide controls for the consistency and completeness checker, the Consistency Checker (CC) tool. The CC checks take a number of forms. There are a number of additional parameters, and a series of rules.

Child

A child item is an item at the level immediately below the parent item. So if the parent item is numbered 1.1, the child item would be numbered 1.1.1.

Class

An abstraction of a group of objects that share common properties, behaviour, relationships, and semantics. Each class included in a system model must be fully described in a home module. Each class has a name, an optional stereotype (from one of a defined set), and is defined by a set of attributes and operations (sometimes called methods).

Class Diagram

Class Diagram (CD) is a diagram notation that allows you to identify and characterise classes, and to define the static relationships between them

Classification

A project-specific set of up to 32 security classifications and clearances may be defined, each of which may consist of up to 16 uppercase characters. New classifications may be added and positioned within the hierarchy of classifications, which are listed in ascending order.

Code Generator

A Cradle tool (CGEN) which constructs program source code in any of the Ada, C, ANSI C or Pascal languages from system design information. The Code Generator can produce original source code from new designs or, in conjunction with the Reverse Engineering tool, re-engineer existing source code from changes in an existing system design.

Collaboration Diagram

A Collaboration Diagram (COD) shows the details of the interaction of the environment (the external actors shown in the Use Case Diagram (UCD)) with the appropriate part(s) of the system (classes and their object instances). The COD clearly shows the totality of message transfers between all of the actors and classes/object instances involved in the scenario.

Collapse

Collapsing selected symbols places them in the paste buffer as a single symbol, with external connections retained. The buffer contents can then be pasted into a diagram. Collapsing a diagram collapses it into a parent diagram.

Colour Band

Colour bands provide the ability to show an attribute's value in different colours. This could enable you to adopt a traffic-light system for risks, e.g. red for high risks, orange for medium risks and green for low risks

Colourset

A colour set is a named pair of foreground and background colours, each specified by a name from the Cradle colourmap.

Command Directive

Command directives are variable elements of external, host operating system commands when an event occurs within it, such as a text file being generated and Cradle attempting to print the file. All command directives start with a $ and include, for example $PATH which is replaced with the pathname of the generated file in the final, executed command.

Component Diagram

Component Diagrams (CPDs) show dependencies between compilation units, typically including source files, and the runtime components of the final system.

Composition Specification

A part of a data definition that contains details of the component parts of the data definition, expressed in a formal syntax that is checked by the Cradle Data Dictionary Editor (DDE). The Composition Specification is held in a frame called COMPOSITION in a data definition.

Condition

The guard on a transition in a State Transition Diagram (STD), the condition that must be true before a transition will occur between a pair of states.

Configuration Management

Configuration Management (CM) is the mechanism used to control the modification of project information.

Configuration Management Log

The configuration management log is an automated record of all CM and change control activity within a project. The Configuration Management System (CMS) will automatically record in the configuration management log all significant events with regard to the formal review and change of information, the manipulation of project baselines, and the introduction and ultimate completion of formal Change Requests (CHRs) and Change Tasks (CHTs). The configuration management log is the database from which an unlimited amount of QA and QC documentation can be produced to automate compliance with international QA standards such as ISO9000.

Configuration Management System

The Cradle Configuration Management System (CMS) is a suite of tools for the formal review of information, its fixture within project baselines, the raising and processing of formal changes to such baselines, and the logging of all such CM-related activity. The CMS operates in conjunction with the structure of a project to achieve the project’s objectives for QA standard compliance (AQAP-13, ISO9000, BS5750, etc.) for internal project control.

Conformance Checker

The Conformance Checker defines conformance checks for non-model information. The Conformance Checker applies one or more tests to the contents of a frame in one or more items to help decide if these item(s) have been expressed with acceptable rigour.

Connector

A generic term used for types of symbol that interconnect other types of symbol, the latter being called objects. Examples of connectors are Data Flow Diagram (DFD) flows, State Transition Diagram (STD) transitions, and Structure Chart (STC) couples.

Consistency Checker

A Cradle tool that automates the checking of analysis and/or design information for consistency, completeness, and omission. The Consistency Checker (CC) rigorously applies the information in the functional, object, dynamic, and data views of a system to check the integrity of the view under consideration.

Context Diagram

The highest level Data Flow Diagram (DFD) in a project’s system analysis which defines the boundary of the system. This boundary crucially establishes what is within the system and what is in the system’s environment. Changes to the Context Diagram effectively move the system boundary inwards or outwards. Inward movements of the system boundary reduce the scope of the system and so decrease the complexity of the system’s interfaces. Outward movements of the system’s boundary increase the scope of the system and thereby increase the complexity of the system’s interfaces.

Control Flow Diagram

A form of Data Flow Diagram (DFD) in which only the control elements of a system are shown. Control Flow Diagrams are represented in Cradle as a view of the associated DFD, chosen from the view modes.

Control Integration

A type of integration between individual software tools in a software or systems engineering environment. Control integration refers to the ability of a tool to exercise control over tools produced by other software vendors, and the ability of a tool to have control exercised over it.

Converter

Converters convert data from an external tool into a Cradle import/export file which can then be imported into your Cradle project database.

Cost Breakdown Structure

A Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS) manages project and system costs.

Cradle

Cradle is a systems and software engineering environment that provides through life support from requirements capture to system implementation with supporting configuration management, project control, and document generation capabilities.

Cradle Database Server

A component of the Cradle systems engineering software that provides Cradle with access to the contents of project databases. The Cradle Database Server (CDS) provides multi-user access on behalf of any number of Cradle tools to the files in an arbitrary number of project databases. The CDS provides record locking and similar services to the tools, and contains error detection and recovery code such that it will recover in the event of an internal failure or a failure in any Cradle Tool. The CDS will not start if it detects another CDS on the same network, although a CDS can be configured so as to only respond to Cradle components executing on part of a network. This mechanism can be used to allow multiple CDSs on the same network.

Cradle Web Server

The Cradle Web Server (CWS) is the HTTPD server that provides dynamic websites to users connecting to the Cradle databases from their web browsers.

Cross Reference

A bidirectional link (xref) between one item of information and another created so as to reflect an interdependence between the items. Cross references are the basis for the creation of compliancy matrices and traceability tables to ensure that all aspects of a system are derived from original customer requirements without unwanted additions and without unauthorised omissions.