Computer-Aided Software Engineering - (CASE) Tools

1. Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE), in the field of Software Engineering is the scientific application of a set of tools and methods to a software which is meant to result in high-quality, defect-free, and maintainable software products.It also refers to methods for the development of information systems together with automated tools that can be used in the software development process.  It can refer also  to the software used for the automated development of systems software, i.e., computer code. The CASE functions include analysis, design, and programming. CASE tools automate methods for designing, documenting, and producing structured computer code in the desired programming language.

              Two key ideas of Computer-aided Software System Engineering (CASE) are:

             the harboring of computer assistance in software development and or software maintenance processes, and
                     An engineering approach to the software development and or maintenance.

          Some typical CASE tools are:

1. Configuration management tools
2. Data modeling tools
3. Model transformation tools
4. Program transformation tools
5. Refactoring tools
6. Source code generation tools, and
7. Unified Modeling Language
   
   Many CASE tools not only output code but also generate other output typical of various systems analysis and design methodologies such as:

1. data flow diagram
2. entity relationship diagram
3. logical schema
4. Program specificatio
5. SSADM.
6. User documentation

2. A CASE tool is a computer-based product aimed at supporting one or more software engineering activities within a software development process.

References: 

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_software_engineering

2. http://www.ask.com/bar?q=what+is+CASE+tool%3F&page=1&qsrc=0&ab=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sei.cmu.edu%2Flegacy%2Fcase%2Fcase_whatis.html