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Cohesion & Coupling

The document discusses the design phase of the software development life cycle. It describes conceptual design, which tells customers what the system will do, and technical design, which provides details for developers. Good design principles include modularization, low coupling, and high cohesion. Modularization divides a system into independent modules, while coupling measures interdependence between modules. The best forms of coupling and cohesion group logically related elements and minimize dependencies.

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Nida khan
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101 views4 pages

Cohesion & Coupling

The document discusses the design phase of the software development life cycle. It describes conceptual design, which tells customers what the system will do, and technical design, which provides details for developers. Good design principles include modularization, low coupling, and high cohesion. Modularization divides a system into independent modules, while coupling measures interdependence between modules. The best forms of coupling and cohesion group logically related elements and minimize dependencies.

Uploaded by

Nida khan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Introduction: The purpose of Design phase in the Software Development

Life Cycle is to produce a solution to a problem given in the SRS(Software


Requirement Specification) document. The output of the design phase is
Sofware Design Document (SDD).
Basically, design is a two-part iterative process. First part is Conceptual
Design that tells the customer what the system will do. Second is Technical
Design that allows the system builders to understand the actual hardware
and software needed to solve customer’s problem.

Conceptual design of system:


 Written in simple language i.e. customer understandable language.
 Detail explanation about system characteristics.
 Describes the functionality of the system.
 It is independent of implementation.
 Linked with requirement document.
Technical Design of system:

 Hardware component and design.


 Functionality and hierarchy of software component.
 Software architecture
 Network architecture
 Data structure and flow of data.
 I/O component of the system.
 Shows interface.
Modularization: Modularization is the process of dividing a software system
into multiple independent modules where each module works independently.
There are many advantages of Modularization in software engineering.
Some of these are given below:
 Easy to understand the system.
 System maintenance is easy.
 A module can be used many times as their requirements. No need to
write it again and again.
Coupling: Coupling is the measure of the degree of interdependence
between the modules. A good software will have low coupling.

Types of Coupling:
 Data Coupling: If the dependency between the modules is based on the
fact that they communicate by passing only data, then the modules are
said to be data coupled. In data coupling, the components are
independent to each other and communicating through data. Module
communications don’t contain tramp data. Example-customer billing
system.
 Stamp Coupling In stamp coupling, the complete data structure is
passed from one module to another module. Therefore, it involves tramp
data. It may be necessary due to efficiency factors- this choice made by
the insightful designer, not a lazy programmer.
 Control Coupling: If the modules communicate by passing control
information, then they are said to be control coupled. It can be bad if
parameters indicate completely different behavior and good if parameters
allow factoring and reuse of functionality. Example- sort function that
takes comparison function as an argument.
 External Coupling: In external coupling, the modules depend on other
modules, external to the software being developed or to a particular type
of hardware. Ex- protocol, external file, device format, etc.
 Common Coupling: The modules have shared data such as global data
structures.The changes in global data mean tracing back to all modules
which access that data to evaluate the effect of the change. So it has got
disadvantages like difficulty in reusing modules, reduced ability to control
data accesses and reduced maintainability.

 Content Coupling: In a content coupling, one module can modify the


data of another module or control flow is passed from one module to the
other module. This is the worst form of coupling and should be avoided.

Cohesion: Cohesion is a measure of the degree to which the elements of


the module are functionally related. It is the degree to which all elements
directed towards performing a single task are contained in the component.
Basically, cohesion is the internal glue that keeps the module together. A
good software design will have high cohesion.

Types of Cohesion:
 Functional Cohesion: Every essential element for a single computation
is contained in the component. A functional cohesion performs the task
and functions. It is an ideal situation.
 Sequential Cohesion: An element outputs some data that becomes the
input for other element, i.e., data flow between the parts. It occurs
naturally in functional programming languages.
 Communicational Cohesion: Two elements operate on the same input
data or contribute towards the same output data. Example- update record
int the database and send it to the printer.
 Procedural Cohesion: Elements of procedural cohesion ensure the
order of execution. Actions are still weakly connected and unlikely to be
reusable. Ex- calculate student GPA, print student record, calculate
cumulative GPA, print cumulative GPA.

 Temporal Cohesion: The elements are related by their timing involved. A
module connected with temporal cohesion all the tasks must be executed
in the same time-span. This cohesion contains the code for initializing all
the parts of the system. Lots of different activities occur, all at init time.

 Logical Cohesion: The elements are logically related and not
functionally. Ex- A component reads inputs from tape, disk, and network.
All the code for these functions is in the same component. Operations are
related, but the functions are significantly different.

 Coincidental Cohesion: The elements are not related(unrelated). The
elements have no conceptual relationship other than location in source
code. It is accidental and the worst form of cohesion. Ex- print next line
and reverse the characters of a string in a single component.

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