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Sufficient Criteria for Consistent Behavior Modeling with Refined Activity Diagrams: Long Version

Lambers, Leen; Jurack, Stefan; Mehner, Katharina; Runge, Olga; Taentzer, Gabriele

Forschungsberichte der Fakultät IV - Elektrotechnik und Informatik / Technische Universität Berlin

In use case-driven approaches to requirements modeling, UML activity diagrams are a wide-spread means for refining the functional view of use cases. Early consistency validation of activity diagrams is therefore desirable but difficult due to the semi-formal nature of activity diagrams. In this paper, we specify well-structured activity diagrams and define activities more precisely by pre- and post- conditions. They can be modeled by interrelated pairs of object diagrams based on a domain class diagram. This activity refinement is based on the theory of graph transformation and paves the ground for a consistency analysis of the required system behavior. A formal semantics for activity diagrams refined by pre- and post-conditions allows us to establish sufficient criteria for consistency. The semi-automatic checking of these criteria is supported by a tool for graph transformation.