Assert and negate revisited: Modal semantics for UML sequence diagrams | Software and Systems Modeling Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Assert and negate revisited: Modal semantics for UML sequence diagrams

  • Regular Paper
  • Published:
Software & Systems Modeling Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Live Sequence Charts (LSC) extend Message Sequence Charts (MSC), mainly by distinguishing possible from necessary behavior. They thus enable the specification of rich multi-modal scenario-based properties, such as mandatory, possible and forbidden scenarios. The sequence diagrams of UML 2.0 enrich those of previous versions of UML by two new operators, assert and negate, for specifying required and forbidden behaviors, which appear to have been inspired by LSC. The UML 2.0 semantics of sequence diagrams, however, being based on pairs of valid and invalid sets of traces, is inadequate, and prevents the new operators from being used effectively.

We propose an extension of, and a different semantics for this UML language—Modal Sequence Diagrams (MSD)—based on the universal/existential modal semantics of LSC. In particular, in MSD assert and negate are really modalities, not operators. We define MSD as a UML 2.0 profile, thus paving the way to apply formal verification, synthesis, and scenario-based execution techniques from LSC to the mainstream UML standard.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
¥17,985 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (Japan)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bontemps, Y., Heymans, P.: Turning high-level sequence charts into automata. In: Proceedings of the 1st international workshop on scenarios and state machines (SCESM’02), at the 24th international conference on software engineering (ICSE’02) (2002)

  2. Booch G., Rumbaugh J. and Jacobson I. (2005). The unified modeling language user guide. Addison Wesley, Reading

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bunker A., Gopalakrishnan G. and Slind K. (2005). Live sequence charts applied to hardware requirements specification and verification: a VCI bus interface model. Software Tools Technol. Trans. 7(4): 341–350

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Cavarra A. and Filipe J.K. (2005). Combining sequence diagrams and OCL for liveness. Electr. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci. 115: 19–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Cengarle, M., Knapp, A.: UML 2.0 Interactions: semantics and refinement. In: Jürjens, J., Fernández, E.B., France, R., Rumpe, B. (eds.) 3rd International workshop on critical systems development with UML (CSDUML’04), pp. 85–99 (2004)

  6. Combes, P., Harel, D., Kugler, H.: Modeling and verification of a telecommunication application using live sequence charts and the play-engine tool, LNCS, vol. 3707, pp. 414–428 (2005)

  7. Damm, W., Harel, D.: LSCs: breathing life into message sequence charts. J. Formal Methods Syst. Des. 19(1), 45–80 (2001). Preliminary version in: Ciancarini, P., Fantechi, A., Gorrieri, R. (eds.) Proceedings of the 3rd IFIP international conference on formal methods for open object-based distributed systems (FMOODS’99), pp. 293–312, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1999)

  8. Damm W. and Westphal B. (2005). Live and let die: LSC-based verification of UML-models. Sci. Comput. Program. 55(1–3): 117–159

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  9. Fecher, H., Schönborn, J., Kyas, M., de Roever, W.P.: 29 New unclarities in the semantics of UML 2.0 state machines. In: Lau, K.K., Banach, R. (eds.) Proceedings of the 7th international conference on formal engineering methods (ICFEM’05), LNCS, vol. 3785, pp. 52–65 (2005)

  10. Gastin, P., Oddoux, D.: Fast LTL to Büchi automata translation. In: Berry, G., Comon, H., Finkel, A. (eds.) Proceedings 13th International Conference on computer aided verification (CAV’01), LNCS, vol. 2102, pp. 53–65. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

  11. Grosu, R., Smolka, S.A.: Safety-liveness semantics for UML 2.0 sequence diagrams. In: 5th international conference on application of concurrency to system design (ACSD’05), pp. 6–14. IEEE Computer Society (2005)

  12. Harel, D., Kleinbrot, A., Maoz, S.: S2A: A compiler for multi-modal UML sequence diagrams. In: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on fundamental approaches to software engineering (FASE’07), LNCS, vol. 4422, pp. 121–124, Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

  13. Harel D. and Kugler H. (2002). Synthesizing state-based object systems from LSC specifications. Int. J. Foundations Comput. Sci. 13(1): 5–51

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  14. Harel, D., Kugler, H., Pnueli, A.: Synthesis revisited: generating statechart models from scenario-based requirements. LNCS, vol. 3393, pp. 309–324 (2005)

  15. Harel, D., Maoz, S.: Assert and negate revisited: modal semantics for UML sequence diagrams. In: Proceedings of the 5th international workshop on scenarios and state machines (SCESM’06), at the 28th international conference on software engineering (ICSE’06), pp. 13–20, ACM Press, New York (2006)

  16. Harel, D., Marelly R.: Come, let’s play: scenario-based programming using LSCs and the play-engine. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

  17. Haugen, Ø., Husa, K.E., Runde, R.K., Stølen, K.: STAIRS towards formal design with sequence diagrams. Software Syst. Model. (SoSyM) 4(4), 355–367 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  18. ITU: International telecommunication union recommendation z.120: Message sequence charts. Tech. rep. (1996)

  19. Klose, J., Toben T., Westphal, B., Wittke, H.: Check it out: on the efficient formal verification of live sequence charts. In: Ball, T., Jones, R.B. (eds.) Proceedings 18th international conference on computer aided verification (CAV’06), LNCS, vol. 4144, pp. 219–233, Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

  20. Klose, J., Wittke, H.: An automata based interpretation of live sequence chart. In: Margaria, T., Yi, W. (eds.) Proceedings 7th international conference on tools and algorithms for the construction and analysis of systems (TACAS’01), LNCS, vol. 2031. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

  21. Knapp, A., Wuttke, J.: Model checking of UML 2.0 interactions. In: Houmb, S.H., Georg, G., France, R., Petriu, D.C., Jürjens, J. (eds.) Proceedings of the international workshop on critical systems development using modeling languages (CSDUML’06), pp. 52–67 (2006)

  22. Kugler, H., Harel, D., Pnueli, A., Lu, Y., Bontemps, Y.: Temporal logic for scenario-based specifications. In: Proceedings of the 11th international conference on tools and algorithms for the construction and analysis of systems (TACAS’05), LNCS, vol. 3440, pp. 445–460. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

  23. Kupferman O. and Vardi M. (2001). Weak alternating automata are not that weak. ACM Trans. Comput. Log. 2(3): 408–429

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  24. Kupferman O., Vardi M. and Wolper P. (2000). An automata-theoretic approach to branching-time model checking. J. ACM 47(2): 312–360

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  25. Lettrari, M., Klose, J.: Scenario-based monitoring and testing of real-time UML models. In: Gogolla, M., Kobryn, C. (eds.) UML, LNCS, vol. 2185, pp. 317–328. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

  26. Maoz, S., Harel, D.: From multi-modal scenarios to code: compiling LSCs into AspectJ. In: Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on foundations of software engineering (SIGSOFT’06/FSE-14), pp. 219–230. ACM Press, New York (2006)

  27. Marelly, R., Harel, D., Kugler, H.: Multiple instances and symbolic variables in executable sequence charts. In: Proceedings of the international conference on object-oriented programming, languages, and applications (OOPSLA’02)

  28. Miyano S. and Hayashi T. (1984). Alternating finite automata on ω-Words. Theor. Comp. Sci. 32: 321–330

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  29. Muller D.E., Saoudi A. and Schupp P.E. (1992). Alternating automata, the weak monadic theory of trees and its complexity. Theor. Comput. Sci. 97(2): 233–244

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  30. Runde R.K., Haugen Ø. and Stølen K. (2005). Refining UML interactions with underspecification and nondeterminism. Nordic J. Comput 12(2): 157–188

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  31. Schinz, I., Toben, T., Mrugalla, C., Westphal, B.: The rhapsody UML verification environment. In: Cuellar, J.R., Liu, Z. (eds.) Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on software engineering and formal methods (SEFM’04), Beijing, China, pp. 174–183. IEEE (2004)

  32. Störrle, H.: Assert, negate and refinement in UML-2.0 interactions. In: Jürjens, J., Fernández, E.B., France, R., Rumpe, B. (eds.) Proceedings of the 3rd international workshop on critical systems development with the UML (CSDUML’04), pp. 79–94 (2004)

  33. Störrle, H.: Trace semantics of UML 2.0 interactions. Tech. rep., University of Munich (2004)

  34. UML: Unified modeling language superstructure specification, v2.0, formal/05-07-04. OMG specification, OMG (August 2005)

  35. UML: unified modeling language testing profile, v1.0. OMG specification, OMG (July 2005)

  36. Westphal, B.: LSC verification for UML models with unbounded creation and destruction. In: Cook, B., Stoller, S., Visser, W. (eds.) Proceedins workshop on software model checking (SoftMC’05), ENTCS, vol. 144, pp. 133–145. Elsevier, Dordrecht (2005)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    David Harel & Shahar Maoz

Authors
  1. David Harel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Shahar Maoz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Harel.

Additional information

Communicated by Dr. Oystein Haugen.

Preliminary version appeared in SCESM '06: Proc. of the 2006 Int. workshop on Scenarios and State Machines, Shanghai, China (May 2006) [15]. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant No.287/02-1), and by The John von Neumann Minerva Center for the Development of Reactive Systems at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Harel, D., Maoz, S. Assert and negate revisited: Modal semantics for UML sequence diagrams. Softw Syst Model 7, 237–252 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-007-0054-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-007-0054-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation