A method and a system for determining the state of a device in an aircraft, this state being specified by a current version of the device as implemented in the aircraft. The method according to the invention comprises: transmitting a request to a database and receiving in response a list of updates previously performed on the device, each update specifying an earlier version and a later version; and from a directed graph, such that each edge corresponds to an update of a set of updates associated with devices of the type of the device of interest, determining a sub-graph corresponding to the list.