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Functional Requirements (Inputs, Processes and Outputs) - National 5 Computing Science

Inputs are what goes ‘in’ to the program - a common example would be anything the user is asked to type in.

Processes are the ‘thinking’ done by the program. It might be a calculation (adding to a score), checking something (has the player won yet?) or any other ‘thinking’ the program has to do.

Outputs are what goes ‘out’ of the program - for National 5, these are often messages printed on the screen.

Example 1:

You’ve been asked to write a program that asks for the name and age of everyone in the class. It then calculates the average, and displays that on the screen.

  • The inputs are the names and ages.

  • The process is calculating the average.

  • The output is the average that is displayed.

Example 2:

You have been asked to write a program for a GPS car navigation system. The program asks the user for their destination. It connects to a satellite to get its current position. It calculates a route, and tells the user how long it expects the journey to take, as well as displaying the route on a map.

  • The inputs are the user’s destination, and the satellite position.

  • The process is calculating the route.

  • The outputs are how long the journey should take and the displayed map.