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Data Flow Diagrams

Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) are graphical modeling tools used in structured analysis to represent a system's functional processes and data movement. A typical DFD includes components such as processes, flows, stores, and terminators, illustrating how data is transformed and transferred within the system. The document outlines the characteristics and representations of each component, emphasizing the flow of data and the passive nature of data stores.

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5 views12 pages

Data Flow Diagrams

Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) are graphical modeling tools used in structured analysis to represent a system's functional processes and data movement. A typical DFD includes components such as processes, flows, stores, and terminators, illustrating how data is transformed and transferred within the system. The document outlines the characteristics and representations of each component, emphasizing the flow of data and the passive nature of data stores.

Uploaded by

i233029
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Data Flow Diagrams

What is a DFD?
● One of the three major graphical modeling tools of structured analysis
The data flow diagram is a modeling tool that allows us to picture a system as a
network of functional processes, connected to one another by “pipelines” and
“holding tanks” of data.
● One of the modeling tools available to the systems analyst and that it provides
only one view of a system — the function-oriented view

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Components of a Typical DFD
● The Process
● The Flow
● The Store
● The Terminator

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The Process (a.k.a. Bubble / Function / Transformation)

● Shows a part of the system that transforms inputs into outputs


○ It shows how one or more inputs are changed into outputs
● Represented as a circle, an oval, a rectangle, or a rectangle with rounded
edges
● The process is named or described with a single word, phrase, or simple
sentence
○ The name describes what the process does
○ A verb-object phrase (VALIDATE INPUT, COMPUTE TAX RATE)

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The Flow
● Describes the movement of chunks, or packets of information from one part of
the system to another part
○ Represent data in motion
● Represented by an arrow into or out of a process
● Named flows: represents the meaning of data that moves along the flow
● Carries only one type of data
● Show direction: an arrowhead at either end of the flow (or both) indicates
whether data are moving into or out of a process (or doing both)

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● Data moving along that flow will either travel to
another process (as an input) or to a store or to a
terminator
● Dataflows can diverge and converge

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The flow doesn’t answer a lot of procedural questions
● Does the process explicitly ask for the input?
○ Does it prompt the user of an online system, indicating that it wants some input?
○ Do data packets move along the flow of their own volition, unasked for?
● Do data move along that flow when process wants to send them, or when
some other part of the system asks for the data?
● Multiple input flows and multiple output flows
○ In what sequence do the packets of data arrive?
○ In what sequence are the output packets generated?
○ Is there a one-to-one ratio between the input packets and the output packets?
■ does process Q require exactly one packet from input flows A, B, and C in order to
produce exactly one output packet for output flows X, Y, and Z? Or are there two As for
every three Bs?

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The Store
Used to model a collection of data at rest
Name: the plural of the name of the data that are carried by flows into and out of
the store
Examples of stores: files, databases, data stored on punched cards, microfilm,
microfiche, or optical disk, or a variety of other electronic forms, 3-by-5 index cards
in a card box, names and addresses in an address book, several file folders in a
file cabinet
Variety of possible implementations of a store

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Does the flow represent a single packet, multiple packets, portions of a packet, or portions of several
packets?

● If the flow is unlabeled, it means that an entire packet of information is being


retrieved from the store
● If the label on the flow is the same as that of the store, then an entire
packet (or multiple instances of an entire packet) is being retrieved
● If the label on the flow is something other than the name of the store,
then one or more components of one or more packets are being retrieved

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The store is passive: data will not travel from the store along the flow unless a
process explicitly asks for them

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