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Documenting Software Architecture: Documenting Interfaces

Technical Note
This report provides guidance for documenting the interfaces to software elements.
Publisher

Software Engineering Institute

CMU/SEI Report Number
CMU/SEI-2002-TN-015

Abstract

This is the fourth in a series of SEI reports on documenting software architectures. This report details guidance for documenting the interfaces to software elements. It prescribes a standard organization (template) for recording semantic as well as syntactic information about an interface. Stakeholders of interface documentation are enumerated, available notations for specifying interfaces are described, and three examples are provided.

Cite This Technical Note

Bachmann, F., Bass, L., Clements, P., Garlan, D., Ivers, J., Little, R., Nord, R., & Stafford, J. (2002, June 1). Documenting Software Architecture: Documenting Interfaces. (Technical Note CMU/SEI-2002-TN-015). Retrieved December 2, 2024, from https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/library/documenting-software-architecture-documenting-interfaces/.

@techreport{bachmann_2002,
author={Bachmann, Felix and Bass, Len and Clements, Paul and Garlan, David and Ivers, James and Little, Reed and Nord, Robert and Stafford, Judith},
title={Documenting Software Architecture: Documenting Interfaces},
month={{Jun},
year={{2002},
number={{CMU/SEI-2002-TN-015},
howpublished={Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute's Digital Library},
url={https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/library/documenting-software-architecture-documenting-interfaces/},
note={Accessed: 2024-Dec-2}
}

Bachmann, Felix, Len Bass, Paul Clements, David Garlan, James Ivers, Reed Little, Robert Nord, and Judith Stafford. "Documenting Software Architecture: Documenting Interfaces." (CMU/SEI-2002-TN-015). Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute's Digital Library. Software Engineering Institute, June 1, 2002. https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/library/documenting-software-architecture-documenting-interfaces/.

F. Bachmann, L. Bass, P. Clements, D. Garlan, J. Ivers, R. Little, R. Nord, and J. Stafford, "Documenting Software Architecture: Documenting Interfaces," Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute's Digital Library. Software Engineering Institute, Technical Note CMU/SEI-2002-TN-015, 1-Jun-2002 [Online]. Available: https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/library/documenting-software-architecture-documenting-interfaces/. [Accessed: 2-Dec-2024].

Bachmann, Felix, Len Bass, Paul Clements, David Garlan, James Ivers, Reed Little, Robert Nord, and Judith Stafford. "Documenting Software Architecture: Documenting Interfaces." (Technical Note CMU/SEI-2002-TN-015). Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute's Digital Library, Software Engineering Institute, 1 Jun. 2002. https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/library/documenting-software-architecture-documenting-interfaces/. Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.

Bachmann, Felix; Bass, Len; Clements, Paul; Garlan, David; Ivers, James; Little, Reed; Nord, Robert; & Stafford, Judith. Documenting Software Architecture: Documenting Interfaces. CMU/SEI-2002-TN-015. Software Engineering Institute. 2002. https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/library/documenting-software-architecture-documenting-interfaces/