Method for Semantic Analysis of Software Requirements Changes in Technical Documentation Versions
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Abstract
A formalized method for the automated detection of software requirement changes during the evolution of technical documentation versions is described. The input data consist of sets of requirements extracted and classified into functional and non-functional categories, with further granularity regarding non-functional requirement types (e.g., performance, security, availability, etc.) for each documentation version. The task of matching requirements between versions is reduced to constructing a partial mapping between the requirement sets and assigning one of the following statuses to each requirement: Unchanged, Modified, New, or Deleted.
A composite similarity function for requirement pairs is proposed, integrating semantic similarity based on vector representations (embeddings), lexical similarity, requirement class consistency, and the structural context of the document. The results of applying the proposed method to an open dataset of requirement pairs are presented. A prototype system for requirement change analysis in technical documentation has been developed.
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