UNIT III

SOFTWARE DESIGN

Software design is a mechanism to transform user requirements into some suitable form, which
helps the programmer in software coding and implementation. It deals with representing the
client's requirement, as described in SRS (Software Requirement Specification) document, into a
form, i.e., easily implementable using programming language.

The software design phase is the first step in SDLC (Software Design Life Cycle), which moves
the concentration from the problem domain to the solution domain. In software design, we
consider the system to be a set of components or modules with clearly defined behaviors &
boundaries.
OBJECTIVES OF SOFTWARE DESIGN

1. Correctness:Software design should be correct as per requirement.

2. Completeness:The design should have all components like data structures, modules, and
external interfaces, etc.
3. Efficiency:Resources should be used efficiently by the program.
4. Flexibility:Able to modify on changing needs.
5. Consistency:There should not be any inconsistency in the design.
6. Maintainability: The design should be so simple so that it can be easily maintainable by
other designers.

SOFTWARE DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Software design principles are concerned with providing means to handle the complexity of the
design process effectively. Effectively managing the complexity will not only reduce the effort
needed for design but can also reduce the scope of introducing errors during design.
Problem Partitioning

For small problem, we can handle the entire problem at once but for the significant problem,
divide the problems and conquer the problem it means to divide the problem into smaller pieces
so that each piece can be captured separately.

For software design, the goal is to divide the problem into manageable pieces.

Benefits of Problem Partitioning

1. Software is easy to understand
2. Software becomes simple
3. Software is easy to test
4. Software is easy to modify
5. Software is easy to maintain
6. Software is easy to expand

These pieces cannot be entirely independent of each other as they together form the system. They
have to cooperate and communicate to solve the problem. This communication adds complexity.

Abstraction
An abstraction is a tool that enables a designer to consider a component at an abstract level
without bothering about the internal details of the implementation. Abstraction can be used for
existing element as well as the component being designed.

two common abstraction mechanisms

1. Functional Abstraction
2. Data Abstraction

Functional Abstraction
i. A module is specified by the method it performs.
ii. The details of the algorithm to accomplish the functions are not visible to the user of the
function.

Functional abstraction forms the basis for Function oriented design approaches.

Data Abstraction

Details of the data elements are not visible to the users of data. Data Abstraction forms the basis
for Object Oriented design approaches.

Modularity

Modularity specifies to the division of software into separate modules which are differently
named and addressed and are integrated later on in to obtain the completely functional software.
It is the only property that allows a program to be intellectually manageable. Single large
programs are difficult to understand and read due to a large number of reference variables,
control paths, global variables, etc.

The desirable properties of a modular system are:

o Each module is a well-defined system that can be used with other applications.
o Each module has single specified objectives.
o Modules can be separately compiled and saved in the library.
o Modules should be easier to use than to build.
o Modules are simpler from outside than inside.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Modularity

In this topic, we will discuss various advantage and disadvantage of Modularity.

Advantages of Modularity

There are several advantages of Modularity

o It allows large programs to be written by several or different people

o It encourages the creation of commonly used routines to be placed in the library and used
by other programs.
o It simplifies the overlay procedure of loading a large program into main storage.
o It provides more checkpoints to measure progress.
o It provides a framework for complete testing, more accessible to test
o It produced the well designed and more readable program.

Disadvantages of Modularity

There are several disadvantages of Modularity

o Execution time maybe, but not certainly, longer

o Storage size perhaps, but is not certainly, increased
o Compilation and loading time may be longer
o Inter-module communication problems may be increased
 o More linkage required, run-time may be longer, more source lines must be written, and
more documentation has to be done

Modular Design

Modular design reduces the design complexity and results in easier and faster implementation by
allowing parallel development of various parts of a system. We discuss a different section of
modular design in detail in this section:

1. Functional Independence: Functional independence is achieved by developing functions that

perform only one kind of task and do not excessively interact with other modules. Independence
is important because it makes implementation more accessible and faster. The independent
modules are easier to maintain, test, and reduce error propagation and can be reused in other
programs as well. Thus, functional independence is a good design feature which ensures
software quality.

It is measured using two criteria:

o Cohesion: It measures the relative function strength of a module.

o Coupling: It measures the relative interdependence among modules.

2. Information hiding: The fundamental of Information hiding suggests that modules can be
characterized by the design decisions that protect from the others, i.e., In other words, modules
should be specified that data include within a module is inaccessible to other modules that do not
need for such information.

The use of information hiding as design criteria for modular system provides the most significant
benefits when modifications are required during testing's and later during software maintenance.
This is because as most data and procedures are hidden from other parts of the software,
inadvertent errors introduced during modifications are less likely to propagate to different
locations within the software.

STRATEGY OF DESIGN

A good system design strategy is to organize the program modules in such a method that are easy
to develop and latter too, change. Structured design methods help developers to deal with the
size and complexity of programs. Analysts generate instructions for the developers about how
code should be composed and how pieces of code should fit together to form a program.

To design a system, there are two possible approaches:

1. Top-down Approach
 2. Bottom-up Approach

1. Top-down Approach: This approach starts with the identification of the main components
and then decomposing them into their more detailed sub-components.

2. Bottom-up Approach: A bottom-up approach begins with the lower details and moves
towards up the hierarchy, as shown in fig. This approach is suitable in case of an existing system.
COUPLING AND COHESION

Module Coupling

In software engineering, the coupling is the degree of interdependence between software

modules. Two modules that are tightly coupled are strongly dependent on each other. However,
two modules that are loosely coupled are not dependent on each other. Uncoupled modules have
no interdependence at all within them.

The various types of coupling techniques are shown in fig:

A good design is the one that has low coupling. Coupling is measured by the number of relations
between the modules. That is, the coupling increases as the number of calls between modules
increase or the amount of shared data is large. Thus, it can be said that a design with high
coupling will have more errors.
Types of Module Coupling

1. No Direct Coupling: There is no direct coupling between M1 and M2.

In this case, modules are subordinates to different modules. Therefore, no direct coupling.

2. Data Coupling: When data of one module is passed to another module, this is called data
coupling.
3. Stamp Coupling: Two modules are stamp coupled if they communicate using composite data
items such as structure, objects, etc. When the module passes non-global data structure or entire
structure to another module, they are said to be stamp coupled. For example, passing structure
variable in C or object in C++ language to a module.

4. Control Coupling: Control Coupling exists among two modules if data from one module is
used to direct the structure of instruction execution in another.

5. External Coupling: External Coupling arises when two modules share an externally imposed
data format, communication protocols, or device interface. This is related to communication to
external tools and devices.

6. Common Coupling: Two modules are common coupled if they share information through
some global data items.

7. Content Coupling: Content Coupling exists among two modules if they share code, e.g., a
branch from one module into another module.
MODULE COHESION

In computer programming, cohesion defines to the degree to which the elements of a module
belong together. Thus, cohesion measures the strength of relationships between pieces of
functionality within a given module. For example, in highly cohesive systems, functionality is
strongly related.

Cohesion is an ordinal type of measurement and is generally described as "high cohesion" or

"low cohesion."
TYPES OF MODULES COHESION

1. Functional Cohesion: Functional Cohesion is said to exist if the different elements of a

module, cooperate to achieve a single function.
2. Sequential Cohesion: A module is said to possess sequential cohesion if the element of a
module form the components of the sequence, where the output from one component of
the sequence is input to the next.
3. Communicational Cohesion: A module is said to have communicational cohesion, if all
tasks of the module refer to or update the same data structure, e.g., the set of functions
defined on an array or a stack.
4. Procedural Cohesion: A module is said to be procedural cohesion if the set of purpose
of the module are all parts of a procedure in which particular sequence of steps has to be
carried out for achieving a goal, e.g., the algorithm for decoding a message.
 5. Temporal Cohesion: When a module includes functions that are associated by the fact
that all the methods must be executed in the same time, the module is said to exhibit
temporal cohesion.
6. Logical Cohesion: A module is said to be logically cohesive if all the elements of the
module perform a similar operation. For example Error handling, data input and data
output, etc.
7. Coincidental Cohesion: A module is said to have coincidental cohesion if it performs a
set of tasks that are associated with each other very loosely, if at all.

DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN COUPLING AND COHESION

Coupling Cohesion

Coupling is also called Inter-Module Cohesion is also called Intra-Module Binding.

Binding.

Coupling shows the relationships between Cohesion shows the relationship within the module.
modules.

Coupling shows the Cohesion shows the module's

relative independence between the relative functional strength.
modules.

While creating, you should aim for low While creating you should aim for high cohesion, i.e., a
coupling, i.e., dependency among modules cohesive component/ module focuses on a single
should be less. function (i.e., single-mindedness) with little interaction
with other modules of the system.

In coupling, modules are linked to the

other modules.