1.

1 Overview
Software requirements are often specified in natural language (NL).
These NL requirements are typically coming from a pool of natural
language statements which are gathered from interview excerpts,
documents and notes. However, requirements specified in NL can often
be

ambiguous,

incomplete,

and

inconsistent.

Moreover,

the

interpretation and understanding of anything described in NL has the

potential of being influenced by geographical, psychological and
sociological factors. For this reason, Informal natural language
requirements are better to be expressed as formal representations. It is
the job of requirements analysts to detect and fix any potential
ambiguities, inconsistencies, and incompleteness in the requirements
specifications documents.
Our project idea Class Diagram From textual requirements using
Natural language processing(NLP) techniques proposes a method and
a tool to facilitate requirements analysis process and class diagram
extraction from textual requirements supporting natural language
processing (NLP) and Domain Ontology techniques. Requirements
engineersanalyze requirements manually to come out with analysis
artifacts such as class diagram and use case diagram. The time spent on
the analysis and the low quality of human analysis proved the need
ofautomated support.

This project will assist designer by providing an efficient and fast way to
produce the class diagram and use case diagram for their natural
language requirement.
1.1

Problem Definition

The project aims to propose a method for translating software

requirements

specification

to

formal

specification.

Software

requirements specified in a scenario-like format consisting of an eventstate-action list as proposed will become the source for an automated
translation.
The objective of the project is to develop a knowledge based software
for Software Engineering Domain. The input to the system would be a
pure Natural Language English text (Specific format) that input actors,
event and action and output would be a class diagram and use case
diagram.
There has been much work on NLP recently, but the area has been
around for a relatively long time in the computing world. The main aim
of NLP research is to create a better interface to the computer. Spoken
language is the most natural interface available for humans to use, but
computers are still unable to come close to the rich communication
humans can achieve with each other. Science fiction has created many

robots or computers that are able to understand and carry out tasks
based on spoken orders or communication.

Introduction
According to Glass law, requirements deficiencies are the prime cause
of software project failures. Incomplete, inconsistent, ambiguous, and
unstable requirements specification can leads to project failures. The
root of this problem is because requirements are poorly understood
and articulated, in most cases, even by domain experts.

In most practices, therefore, practitioners choose to specify software

requirements using natural languages. The reason why natural
language is preferred as the specification medium is due to the fact that
the involved stakeholders (which normally people having no
programming background)are more familiar with natural language
compared to using other types of media (formal or modeling
language).The

use

of

natural

language

to

specify

software

requirements, however, should be complemented with formal

specification especially for documentation purposes. In some software
development methodologies, such as translative approach, formal

specification even becomes very important artifact since it will be the

translation source in order to obtain software code.Software
requirements specified in a scenario-like format consisting of an eventstate-action list as proposed in will become the source for an
automated translation.

The common way to express requirements is with large volumes of text

which can be referred to as natural language (NL) requirements. NL
requirements are typically coming from a pool of natural language
statements which are gathered from interview excerpts, documents
and notes. Due to the inherent ambiguity of natural language, it is often
difficult to prove properties on NL requirements. For this reason,
Informal natural language requirements are better to be expressed as
formal representations. Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD)
has become a popular approach for software development since the
1990s. UML class diagrams are the main core of OO analysis and design
systems where most other models are derived from. Natural language
processing (NLP) is recognized as a general assistance in analyzing
requirements. The NLP systems use different levels of linguistic
analysis: Phonetic (phonological) level, Morphological level, Lexical
level, Syntactic level, Semantic level, Discourse level and Pragmatic

level. In addition to NLP techniques, Domain Ontology has been widely

used to improve the performance of concept identification. Domain
ontology refers to domain knowledge that consists of structured
concepts which are semantically related to each other. Concepts and
relationships in a real world can be represented in ontology which can
be then used as a resource of domain knowledge. Using ontology
allows several kinds of semantic processing to be achieved in
requirements analysis process. The aim of this project is to
demonstrate the use of NLP and domain ontology techniques for the
extraction of UML class diagram and use case diagram from informal
natural language requirements by implementing a prototype tool that
uses the mentioned techniques. The proposed tool is referred to as
Requirements Analysis and Class Diagram Extraction(RACE). The RACE
tool assists analysts by providing an efficient and fast way to produce
the class diagram from their requirements. It supports a good
interaction with users by providing a modern and human-centered user
interface.

3.1.1 Purpose
The purpose of this project is to propose a method for translating
software requirements specification to formal specification. Software

requirements specified in a scenario-like format consisting of an eventstate-action list as proposed will become the source for an automated
translation.

3.1.2 Project Scope

This application can be used by organizations for extracting class
diagrams and use case diagram from project requirements given by the
client as a text document to simplify the design process.
To Design a Prototype model for Inputting Natural Textual Data as
per the format specification
To Design tools for Text Extraction and Semantics
To Design GUI Interface to produce output in Class diagram and
Usecase Diagram
To design RACE Architecture
3.1.3 Design and Implementation Constraints
If there is power failure, system cannot recover the ongoing
session.
The Project is working only for Class Diagram and Usecase
diagram.

 The diagrams will be drawn only if input is written in

specificformat of natural English language.
3.1.4 Design and Implementation Constraints
It is limited to work on Microsoft Windows Environment only.
System must have JVM.

3.3 External Interface Requirements

3.3.1 User Interfaces
The user will be provided with a simple and user friendly GUI. The GUI
components of the system will be developed using:
Swing

3.3.2 Software Interfaces

Software requirements for the project are summarized as follows:

Table 3.2 Software interfaces

Software
Development Tool

Netbeans

Development Kit

JAVA SDK 1.7

Development Platforms

Windows 7

3.3.3 Hardware Interfaces

Table 3.3 Hardware interfaces
Requirements

Specifications

PROESSOR

4GHz or ICORE Machine

RAM

4GB

HDD

180GB