Analyzing and Designing Structure in Software Engineering

Structure chart is a principal tool of structured design. It is a standardized format that is used to show the details about a page and classify the content of the page.

1. The basic element in the structured chart is a module. The module is defined as a collection of program statements with four attributes.
   • Input and Output –
     The information that a module gets from the invoker is called input and the information that a receiver gets from the module is called output.
   • Function –
     The function processes the input and produces the output.
   • Mechanics –
     It is simply the code or the logic with the help of which the function is carried out.
   • Internal data –
     It is the own workspace.
2. The two modules can be connected to each other by a connector as shown below –

   

3. The module uses data and flags. The data is processed by different modules. The flag is used as a control signal. It can be set or reset.
   For example, if we have two modules, one for getting the employee detail (caller) and another module is for finding the employee name (called), then the caller module will send the data as an employee’s ID and using that ID the called module will find the name of the employee. If the employee ID is valid then that message will be given by the called module to caller module.

   The use of data and flag is shown below:

   

4. The iteration and decisions on a structured chart are shown below –

   

5. The example of the structure chart is given below –