1. Tracking Specification Requirements Evolution: Database Approach Denis Silakov, ISP RAS silakov@ispras.ru

2. Software Standards and Specifications  Text  Test suites  Additional tools for developers

3. Linux Standard Base  Specifies: Binary interfaces (> 35000) Commands ELF & RPM formats  Tests: Manually written Automatically generated  Tools: LSB Building Environment (headers, stub libraries, lsb c compiler wrapper, etc.)

4. LSB Specification Database

5. Needs for History Support  Evolution history, statistics  Certification for different standard versions Tests and Tools for different versions

6. The Present Situation  Support of separated file sets for different versions Entirely manual work  Database storing temporal data Automatic difference generation Automatic statistics reports generation …

7. History Information  Requirement added  Requirement removed  Requirement became deprecated  Requirement became mandatory (not optional)  Some requirement statements changed new requirement

8. Relational Databases: Temporal Dimension 1. Grouped Approach [0-1] 25 [2-3] 50 [4-5] 25 a ValueElement

9. Relational Databases: Temporal Dimension (2) 2. Ungrouped Approach 5425a 3250a 1025a EndStartValueElement

10. Temporal Dimension: Discrete Time  Full list of time stamps 2,350a 0,1,4,525a Time Stamps ValueElement

11. Possible Approaches Summary  Grouped approach Not pure relational database  Ungrouped approach Simple database extension Extra records can be required  Versions Lists Simple database extensions Less extra records, but lower performance

12. Time Stamps for Specification Requirements:  Appeared in  Withdrawn in  Mandatory since  Deprecated since  …

13. Consistency Questions: General  Appeared in < Withdrawn in  Mandatory since >= Appeared in  Deprecated since > Appeared in  Deprecated since < Withdrawn in  Mandatory Since < Withdrawn in ...

14. Consistency Questions: Semantics Based  Interface ‘a’ uses Type ‘b’: b.Appeared in <= a.Appeared in b.Withdrawn in >= a.Withdrawn in

15. LSB Evolution Tracking  Fields for evolution tracking in 13 tables  Version support in all generators: Specification test generation LSB Building Environment files generation Automatic tests generation  Web interface (LSB Navigator) with version support

16. LSB Evolution: Future Directions  Version support in tools generated  Track candidates for next LSB versions

17. Thank You