The control structure diagram

The control structure diagram (CSD) is a graphic stepwise-refinement tool for the development and maintenance of software. The CSD was designed to overcome the deficiencies found in existing graphic tools with respect to readability, ease of use, automation and modern software practices. The primary motivation was to decrease the time required to comprehend software by providing a graphic representation for clearly depicting control constructs and control flow at all levels of program abstraction. The CSD, which includes graphic constructs for refinement, sequence, selection, iteration and exit, was designed to represent software graphically from high-level overview through source code. The graphic constructs are clearly distinguishable, have meaningful connotations, and provide for a high degree of connectivity in the CSD. The CSD is easy to use manually. A fully operational prototype CSD editor was designed and implemented to provide extensive automated support for the CSD