Updating of figure and table numbers

llandale - Fri Jul 22 15:10:20 EDT 2011
In MS-Word you insert a table and give it a specific style Caption and it gives it the next number and renumbers all those below. DOORS does not provide that although someone may have written a clever DXL to do so. Lets not forget that MS-Word lets you "refer" to the table with clever linking, and all these references are automatically updated; that will be MUCH harder to code.

So you have one table with caption "Table-I" and insert a new one above, give it caption "Table-I" and rename the original to "Table-II".

You do NOT want to do that. ..err.. should not want.

Elsewhere any references to "Table-I" are now invalid, such as in the requirement immediately above it which says "..shall be as per Table-I following:" or subordinate specs or in test specs. Also, you have effectively modified that original table by giving it a new caption, even though it has not changed. Your configuration management becomes jumbled as does your change control process; the proposal to insert must be accomanied with proposals to modify the other table(s) as well; which defeats the "automatic" nature you desire.

Analogy: you have a tiny road with 3 houses numbered "1", "2", and "3". The developers decide to build a new house at the corner and you are considering renumbering the others.

If you are still under development and nobody has moved in then go ahead and renumber, old numbers are now "2", "3", and "4" and the new house is "1".
If folks already live in the houses you should not renumber them as that will create quite the fiasco, not just in friends' address books but also at the post office and the 911 here-I-am locator stuff and on city maps and Mapquest. Suck it up and give the new house number ".5" or "0". And make a mental note next time to leave spaces between the numbers.

Likewise for DOORS
Specs under development
Specs under CM.

So what to do? Forgo the MS-Word numbering scheme and come up with your own. Perhaps use caption format "3.2.2-A", and who cares if table "3.2.2-B" comes in front of A. Or call the first one "3.2.2-J" and who cares if any lesser letter even exists.

Or "3.2.2-RatioTranslation" or "Table J-RatioTranslation" which works quite nicely.

Or you can take the advise of the folks that are about to jump all over this post. :)

• Louie

llandale - Fri Jul 22 15:14:28 EDT 2011
Make mental note to leave spaces between the number for future insert, and don't forget to use the preview pane before posting...

1) If you are still under development and nobody has moved in then go ahead and renumber, old numbers are now "2", "3", and "4" and the new house is "1".
2) If folks already live in the houses you should not renumber them as that will create quite the fiasco, not just in friends' address books but also at the post office and the 911 here-I-am locator stuff and on city maps and Mapquest. Suck it up and give the new house number ".5" or "0". And make a mental note next time to leave spaces between the numbers.

Likewise for DOORS
1) Specs under development
2) Specs under CM.

kbmurphy - Fri Jul 22 17:04:40 EDT 2011
One suggestion I always make is to not number anything and just refer to figures and tables by titles...i.e., "See the table named 'This Table'" for more information.

However, a relatively simple method of having a number using DOORS is to just use the absolute number. Thus, the caption for the table named "Big Table" is object 533. So the caption reads: "Table 533: Big Table".

SystemAdmin - Sat Jul 23 18:51:47 EDT 2011
In support of Kevin Murphy - the use of the unique ID assigned to the object that has the Table or Figure (or the caption text) is what I recommend to projects. Not all take up the idea, but many have and the sky did not cave in.

The biggest push back I get is that the UID's don't follow a logical top down order so they can be hard to find - kinda true - but my response to that is that the location of a figure or a table is typically close to where it is referenced in the text anyway, also, it is not difficult to do an electronic search for the UID in DOORS or if it's in an exported format such as PDF, MS Office etc. Maybe hard copies are a problem - but in this day and age of electronic media, this is the exception, but unfortunately it tends to become the irrational straw that breaks the back of this idea, or at least the excuse to not do it.

Another aid to help visually find a Table or Graphic is to include the UID at the beginning of the caption text.