Patent ID: 7434202

Claim:
A system for dependency checking among a plurality of interrelated software products, said system comprising: a microprocessor; a software project comprising a plurality of interrelated software products, wherein two or more of the interrelated software products include dependencies; a plurality of specifications that are associated with said software products, comprising a first specification associated with a first software product and a second specification associated with a second software product, and wherein for each software product the associated specification specifies rules defining any dependencies that are allowable and forbidden within that software product; a predefined set of rules for the software project, the predefined set of rules of the software project defining allowable and forbidden dependencies between said interrelated software products within the software project, wherein said dependencies arise when any of the said software products calls upon any of the other said software products within the project; a rules-based compliance checking routine that runs tests to check the compliance of any dependencies between the specifications associated with the two or more of said interrelated software products within said software project according to said predefined set of rules for the software project; and a report device executed by the microprocessor that reports the results of said tests.