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Data Flow Diagram (DFD)

The context diagram shows a single bubble labeled "Issue/Return Books" with incoming data arrows for "Member Details" and "Book Details" and outgoing data arrows for "Issued Books List" and "Returned Books List". External entities are "Library Members" and "Library Staff".

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Prachi
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39 views

Data Flow Diagram (DFD)

The context diagram shows a single bubble labeled "Issue/Return Books" with incoming data arrows for "Member Details" and "Book Details" and outgoing data arrows for "Issued Books List" and "Returned Books List". External entities are "Library Members" and "Library Staff".

Uploaded by

Prachi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Data Flow Diagram (DFD)

Data Flow Diagram (DFD)


• The DFD (also known as a bubble chart) is a hierarchical
graphical model of a system that shows the different
processing activities or functions that the system performs
and the data interchange among these functions.
• Each function is considered as a processing station (or
process) that consumes some input data and produces
some output data.
• The system is represented in terms of the input data to the
system, various processing carried out on these data, and
the output data generated by the system.
• A DFD model uses a very limited number of primitive
symbols to represent the functions performed by a system
and the data flow among these functions.
Importance of DFDs in a good software
design
• The main reason why the DFD technique is so popular is
probably because of the fact that DFD is a very simple
formalism – it is simple to understand and use.
• Starting with a set of high-level functions that a system
performs, a DFD model hierarchically represents various sub-
functions.
• In fact, any hierarchical model is simple to understand.
• Human mind is such that it can easily understand any
hierarchical model of a system – because in a hierarchical
model, starting with a very simple and abstract model of a
system, different details of the system are slowly introduced
through different hierarchies.
Importance of DFDs in a good software
design
• The data flow diagramming technique also follows a very
simple set of intuitive concepts and rules.

• DFD is an elegant modeling technique that turns out to be


useful not only to represent the results of structured analysis
of a software problem, but also for several other applications
such as showing the flow of documents or items in an
organization.
Context diagram
• The context diagram is the most abstract data flow
representation of a system.
• It represents the entire system as a single bubble. This
bubble is labeled according to the main function of the
system.
• The various external entities with which the system
interacts and the data flow occurring between the system
and the external entities are also represented.
• The data input to the system and the data output from the
system are represented as incoming and outgoing arrows.
Context diagram
• These data flow arrows should be annotated with the
corresponding data names.
• The name ‘context diagram’ is well justified because it
represents the context in which the system is to exist, i.e.
the external entities who would interact with the system
and the specific data items they would be supplying the
system and the data items they would be receiving from
the system.
• The context diagram is also called as the level 0 DFD.
• The bubble in the context diagram is annotated with the
name of the software system being developed (usually a
noun)
Example
A supermarket needs to develop the following software to
encourage regular customers. For this, the customer needs to
supply his/her residence address, telephone number, and the
driving license number. Each customer who registers for this scheme
is assigned a unique customer number (CN) by the computer. A
customer can present his CN to the check out staff when he makes
any purchase. In this case, the value of his purchase is credited
against his CN. At the end of each year, the supermarket intends to
award surprise gifts to 10 customers who make the highest total
purchase over the year. Also, it intends to award a 22 caret gold coin
to every customer whose purchase exceeded Rs.10,000. The entries
against the CN are the reset on the day of every year after the prize
winners’ lists are generated.
Balancing a DFD
• The data that flow into or out of a bubble must
match the data flow at the next level of DFD.
• This is known as balancing a DFD. The concept
of balancing a DFD has been illustrated.
• In the level 1 of the DFD, data items d1 and d3
flow out of the bubble 0.1 and the data item d2
flows into the bubble 0.1.
• In the next level, bubble 0.1 is decomposed. The
decomposition is balanced, as d1 and d3 flow
out of the level 2 diagram and d2 flows in.
Level 1 DFD
• To develop the level 1 DFD, examine the high-level functional
requirements.
• If there are between 3 to 7 high-level functional requirements,
then these can be directly represented as bubbles in the level 1
DFD.
• If a system has more than 7 high-level functional requirements,
then some of the related requirements have to be combined
and represented in the form of a bubble in the level 1 DFD.
Such a bubble can be split in the lower DFD levels.
• If a system has less than three high-level functional
requirements, then some of them need to be split into their
sub-functions so that we have roughly about 5 to 7 bubbles on
the diagram.
Level 1 DFD
• Numbering of Bubbles:-
– It is necessary to number the different bubbles occurring
in the DFD.
– These numbers help in uniquely identifying any bubble in
the DFD by its bubble number.
– The bubble at the context level is usually assigned the
number 0 to indicate that it is the 0 level DFD. Bubbles at
level 1 are numbered, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, etc, etc.
– When a bubble numbered x is decomposed, its children
bubble are numbered x.1, x.2, x.3, etc. In this numbering
scheme, by looking at the number of a bubble
– we can unambiguously determine its level, its ancestors,
and its successors.
Questions
• Draw overall DFD for Issue/Return of a books
in a library

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