I am currently working on my final project at my school. And am about to graduate. I have always had difficulties with UML diagrams, and I am struggling to make my decision on which one I should use for picturing my code.
My code is a python script, and contains a loop that works in the following way:
I run the script from a terminal ->
Terminal listens to two keys (W & Q).
If Q is pressed the script stops.
If W is pressed the loop begins in the following order:
Raspberry Pi camera takes a picture ->
Crop specific portion out of said picture and save it ->
Run Text recognition on that picture, which returns a text string and is saved in a variable ->
Run Regex to filter out junk characters from text string and create new "clean" text string ->
Run GET request to website using clean text string, and get return based on it. ->
Print out response from request.
Which diagram would be the best choice to make this sequence simple to understand. I have looked into various diagrams such as System Sequence diagrams, and the like. But I have yet to find anything that actually makes sense for me to use. Should I just resort to using a flow chart? Or is there something out there that is better for me to use?
You want to use an Event-driven process chain (EPC).
In this case (without seeing your Code) I recommend using a 'Event-driven process chain' short: (EPC), [German: (EPK), Ereignisgesteuerte Prozesskette].
UMLs most of the time get used to display 'Class-Structures' rather than a process in a chain/script.
EPCs make use of logical operators, such as OR, AND, and XOR which can represent events like:
'Terminal listens to two keys (W & Q)' => XOR -> W ->Q
You can read more about it here.
edit:
In the case that you are limited to UML Diagrams only:
Out of the Seven Behavioral UML diagrams, you should indeed use the 'UML Activity diagram' as suggested by the user qwerty_so. It is similar to the EPC and can be described as the UML 'Flowchart' variant.
UML Diagrams are limited to six 'Structural' UML diagrams and Seven 'Behavioral' UML diagrams:
Behavioral UML diagrams
You can read more about Activity diagrams here.
You can read more about the Types of UML Diagrams here.