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umlsequence-diagramxmi

Message order in UML 2.0 sequence diagrams

How the order of the messages is modeled in UML 2.0 sequence diagrams?

I've browsed the UML 2.2 Superstructure specification and the only structure I found to model order is the GeneralOrdering class. I'm modeling my system with Papyrus, but it doesn't insert message ordering information automatically, so I miss guidelines on the use of this class.

I had the idea to test other tools and check the XMI output, but those that exported the sequence diagram properly used proprietary extensions to model message order. I tried Umodel, astah*, Enterprise Architect, PowerDesigner, Software Ideas Modeler and Visual Paradigm.

Any hint?

Solution

  • I asked the same question in Eclipse Papyrus's forum, where I got the following answer:

    "I'm not sure about the specifics of Papyrus, but in the UML specification, the 'fragments' relationship from Interaction to InteractionFragment is ordered (Figure 14.3), so that determines the order of the messages."

    Follow this link for the full message.