S T R U C T O R I Z E R - User Guide
Import > Foreign diagrams

Foreign diagram import

Structorizer allows to import Nassi Shneiderman diagram files generated by other free diagram editors:

  • "Struktogrammeditor" (.strk files, since version 3.27),
  • "hus-Struktogrammer" (.stgr files from the Java version since 3.29-13, .stgp files since version 3.32-08),
  • "sbide" (.sbd files, since version 3.32-07).

(All of them are alternative free editors for structograms, developed by Kevin Krummenauer, Hans-Ulrich Steck, or Johannes Kässinger, respectively, not necessarily all open source, though. Whereas sbide is a browser tool, the other products are Java applications.)

File menu with foreign diagram file import items (one selected)

To import diagrams emerging from one of these editors is quite straightforward: Select the respective menu item

  • "File › Import › Struktogrammeditor",
  • "File › Import › hus-Struktogrammer", or
  • "File › Import › sbide"

(see screenshot above) and use the popping-up file chooser dialog to elect the .strk, .stgr, .stgp, or .sbd file you want to import. As a result you will obtain a structurally equivalent Nassi-Shneiderman diagram (or an arrangement from a .stgp file) in Structorizer. On importing a hus-Struktogrammer project file, the name of the resulting group will be derived from the project title string or (if that is missing) from the file name.

(Note that an import of .stg files as emerging from the Delphi-based Stgr32 version of hus-Struktogrammer has not been implemented, but there is a simple workaround: You may use the Java version of hus-Struktogrammer to open them and convert them to equivalent .stgr files, which will be importable in turn. The import of hus-Struktogrammer project files of type .stgp became available with version 3.32-08.)

Usually, the text content of the imported diagram elements is not tried to interpret on import. It will mostly be imported as is. (So it may not be conform to the Executor-compatible Structorizer-specific syntax recommendations, input and output instructions may not be recognized as such, etc.)

  • On hus-Struktogrammer import at least some redundant default text prefixes like "While" or "In the case of" may be removed automatically if NSD import option "Replace keywords on loading a diagram (refactoring)" is enabled.
  • For sbide diagrams the situation is slightly better: declarations, operators and keywords are adapted. Even an array index transformation is tried because the index base in sbide is 1, whereas it is 0 in Structorizer and many programming languages. (In the resulting diagram, all affected elements, i. e. those which contain an index access on declared array variables, will be equipped with a comment "Caution: array index base was adapted!" to allow for consistency checking.)

(A PapDesigner flowchart import is also intended.)