Requirement verify tool - reqv

This tool is a helper to create, verify traceability matrix.

In some projects, especially for the critical ones (DO-178...), it is necessary to build some documentations. This document must demonstrate that the software is correctly declined from upper specifications.

This tool aims to help to generate the traceability matrixes.

You give your upper document (directly in yaml format or imported from Excel or Word format) and it will calculate if all your requirements are correctly declined and can generate matrixes.

Here we are a example to better understand.

Taken as hypothesis that your system team builds a document which describes the system and software behavior. Call this document SSS (for System/Subsystem Specification).

You must produce a document declined from it as basis for software development, call this document SRS (Software Requirement Specification)

For each requirement that you write into your SRS you must ensure that it is connected to a SSS requirement.

How tool works ?

This tool works on intermediate data extracted for document. For example, documents are written with Excel or Word.

The tool will extract the requirement according to given rules and build a internal model on this.

Then you can request an export of the data, on console to check in real time (when you write document) or to generate the traceability matrix

Here we are a schema with involved files.

Example

The spec and example folder contains a lot of examples. Let's examine a common use case, this one is stored in example folder.

We have two documents in docx, a system specification (SSS) and a software specification (SRS), and we have a traceability between SSS and SRS.

Then starts by create a project.

Note

reqverify is in fact two tools, reqv to check traceability and reqvp to manage project reqvp has been created to be able to fill the project file without known the intern mechanisms

Create project

So create the project with reqvp

reqvp create_project example_project req_project req_project.reqprj

Note

reqvp contains a help command to see list of possibility

reqvp help
reqvp commands:
reqvp create_project <project_name> <folder> <filename> create a new project in the given folder with the given filename
reqvp add_doc <project_file> raw <doc_name> <doc_filename>
reqvp add_doc <project_file> import <doc_name> handler <import_plugin> <doc_filename> <doc_yaml_file,optional>
reqvp add_plugin_rule <project_file> <doc_name> <rule_name> <rule_value> <rule_type, optional>
reqvp add_relationships <project_file> <relation name> <doc_list> covered-by <doc_list>
reqvp add_derived_name <project_file> <derived_regular exp>

Insert files

Now we need to insert file (document) and to indicate how to manage it. Here we indicates that it is docx file managed by DocxImport plugin.

reqvp add_doc req_project/req_project.reqprj import SSS handler DocxImport SSS_sample.docx
reqvp add_doc req_project/req_project.reqprj import SRS handler DocxImport SRS_sample.docx

Insert rules

The DocxImport plugin is configurable, it retrieves requirement and their characterics by style. These styles must be indicates.

Each document can be configurable independantly and it is possible to build/use your own plugin.

reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SRS req_id_style_name REQ_ID
reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SRS req_title_style_name REQ_TITLE
reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SRS req_text_style_name REQ_TEXT
reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SRS req_cov_style_name REQ_COV
reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SRS req_attributes_style_name REQ_ATTRIBUTES

reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SSS req_id_style_name REQ_ID
reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SSS req_title_style_name REQ_TITLE
reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SSS req_text_style_name REQ_TEXT
reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SSS req_cov_style_name REQ_COV
reqvp add_plugin_rule req_project/req_project.reqprj SSS req_attributes_style_name REQ_ATTRIBUTES

Note

see plugin to have more information on how deal with them.

Derived rules

To identify the derived requirement, the used rule in coverable must be given.

The following command does that:

reqvp add_derived_name req_project/req_project.reqprj "Derived"

Create relationship

Now to finish, we must give the relationship between the document. Here the SSS requirement must be covered by SRS.

reqvp add_relationships req_project/req_project.reqprj "SSS->SRS" SRS covered-by SSS

Note

it is possible to have more complex relationship (1->N N->1 etc.)

Build requirement list

Now we can check the traceabilty with the following command:

reqv --project=req_project/req_project.reqprj --action=status --relationship="SSS->SRS"
document: SRS
  coverage: 100%
  number of requirement: 10
  number of uncovered requirement: 0
  derived requirement: 20%
    SRS_004.1
    SRS_008.1
document: SSS
  coverage: 100%
  number of requirement: 10
  number of uncovered requirement: 0

Export requirement list

We can also export the result into a file, here an Excel sheet:

reqv --project=req_project/req_project.reqprj --action=export --relationship="SSS->SRS" --format=XlsxExport --output-folder=. --output-file=traceability.xlsx

Plugins (for importing or exporting)

Currently it exists two import plugins. For importing docx (or docm) document or important excel (xls) one. See in lib/plugins/ folder.

These plugin use docx and roo-xls gems.

The base class is Reqv::Import. Each ones has a configuration part named rules. These rules are taken from the project file.

To see rules, see the function set_rules of each import plugins. Parameters given to function are directly taken from project file (field handler-rules:)

Plugin list

Currently available plugin are:

• CsvExport: for exporting traceability into csv file
• XlsxExport: for exporting traceability into xlsx file
• DocxImport: for importing requirement from docx file
• XlsImport: for importing requirement from xls file (no coverage)
• XlsxStdImport: for importing requirement from xlsx file (with covering)

Build own plugin.

It is in fact the same format that the build-in ones, but with own rules or decoded gems. See tests/custom_plugins_dir folder for a complete example.

Exports

Currently two formats are managed, xlsx and csv. xlsx export uses caxlsx gems.

Configuration will by possible in the future.

Requirement filtering

Sometimes it can necessary to filter only a group of requirements. For example for a first standard etc. To do this, define in project file a special relationships with filter rules. A filter rules can be added by document in the relationship array of project file. Theses rules will be used to generate the traceability matrix.

It is possible to filter the requirement display with the action display with the -H option. The regular expression format is the same.

Regulation expression format

Format of regulation expression are:

• { fields } // regular expression on field //

Regular expressions are the same syntax that ruby one.

Fields are the requirement ones, i.e. req_id req_attrs req_title req_text For attributes which are complety customs

• { req_attrs/*attributes_name* } // regular expression on field //

Examples

Take only requirements that start with SRS_REQ_

• {req_id}//^SRS_REQ_//

Take only requirements whose planification attribute field is S1

• {req_attrs/planification}//S1//

Installation

build and install the gem:

gem build reqverify.gemspec
gem install reqverify-1.0.5

Tests

launch the test suite by typing

bundle install
rake

TODO

• Add delete part in reqvp executable
• create a GUI to explore requirement traceability

License

BSD-3 LICENSE