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- Resource Type:
- Report
- Creator:
- Torre, Damiano, Elaasar, Maged, Genero, Marcela, and Labiche, Yvan
- Abstract:
- UML diagrams describe different views of one piece of software. These diagrams strongly depend on each other and must therefore be consistent with one another, since inconsistencies between diagrams may be a source of faults during software development activities that rely on these diagrams. It is therefore paramount that consistency rules be defined and that inconsistencies be detected, analyzed and fixed. The relevant literature shows that authors typically define their own UML consistency rules, sometimes defining the same rules and sometimes defining rules that are already in the UML standard. The reason might be that no consolidated set of rules that are deemed relevant by authors can be found to date. The aim of our research is to provide a consolidated set of UML consistency rules and obtain a detailed overview of the current research in this area. We therefore followed a systematic procedure in order to collect and analyze UML consistency rules. We then consolidated a set of 116 UML consistency rules (avoiding redundant definitions or definitions already in the UML standard) that can be used as an important reference for UML-based software development activities, for teaching UML-based software development, and for further research.
- Date Created:
- 2016-07-01
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- Resource Type:
- Report
- Creator:
- Labiche, Yvan, Genero, Marcela, and Torre, Damiano
- Abstract:
- Context: The Unified Modeling Language (UML), with its 14 different diagram types, is the de-facto standard tool for objectoriented modeling and documentation. Since the various UML diagrams describe different aspects of one, and only one, software under development, they are not independent but strongly depend on each other in many ways. In other words, the UML diagrams describing a software must be consistent. Inconsistencies between these diagrams may be a source of the considerable increase of faults in software systems. It is therefore paramount that these inconsistencies be detected, analyzed and hopefully fixed. Objective: The aim of this article is to deliver a comprehensive summary of UML consistency rules as they are described in the literature to date to obtain an extensive and detailed overview of the current research in this area. Method: We performed a Systematic Mapping Study by following well-known guidelines. We selected 94 primary studies from a search with seven search engines performed in December 2012. Results: Different results are worth mentioning. First it appears that researchers tend to discuss very similar consistency rules, over and over again. Most rules are horizontal (98.07%) and syntactic (88.03%). The most used diagrams are the class diagram (71.28%), the state machine diagram (42.55%) and the sequence diagram (47.87%). Conclusion: The fact that many rules are duplicated in primary studies confirms the need for a well accepted list of consistency rules. This paper is a first step in this direction. Results indicate that much more work is needed to develop consistency rules for all 14 UML diagrams, in all dimensions of consistency (e.g., semantic and syntactic on the one hand, horizontal, vertical and evolution on the other hand).
- Date Created:
- 2014-01-01
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- Resource Type:
- Report
- Creator:
- Labiche, Yvan, Torre, Damiano, and Genero, Marcela
- Abstract:
- Context: The Unified Modeling Language (UML), with its 14 different diagram types, is the de-facto standard modeling language for object-oriented modeling and documentation. Since the various UML diagrams describe different aspects of one, and only one, software under development, they are not independent but strongly depend on each ot her in many ways. In other words, diagrams must remain consistent. Dependencies between diagrams can become so intricate that it is sometimes even possible to synthesize one diagram on the basis of others. Support for synthesizing one UML diagram from other diagrams can provide the designer with significant help, thus speeding up the design process, decreasing the risk of errors, and guaranteeing consistency among the diagrams. Objective: The aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive summary of UML synthesis techniques as they have been described in literature to date in order to obtain an extensive and detailed overview of the current research in this area. Method: We have performed a Systematic Mapping Study by following well-known guide-lines. We selected ten primary studies by means of a search with seven search engines per-formed on October 2, 2013. Results: Various results are worth mentioning. First it appears that researchers have not frequently published papers concerning UML synthesis techniques since 2004 (with the exception of two papers published in 2010). Only half of the UML diagram types are involved in the synthesis techniques we discovered. The UML diagram type most frequently used as the source for synthesizing another diagram is the sequence diagram (66.7%), and the most synthesized diagrams are the state machine diagram (58.3%) and the class diagram (25%). Conclusion: The fact that we did not obtain a large number of primary stud ies over a 14 year period (only ten papers) indicates that synthesizing a UML diagram from other UML diagrams is not a particularly active line of research. Research on UML diagram synthesis is nevertheless relevant since synthesis techniques rely on or en force diagram consistency , and studying UML diagram consistency is an active line of research. Another r esult is that research is need ed to investigate synthesis techniques for other types of UML diagrams than those involved in our primary studies.
- Date Created:
- 2015-08-01