Pattern-Based Analysis of the Control-Flow Perspective of UML Activity Diagrams

The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a well-known family of notations for software modelling. Recently, a new version of UML has been released. In this paper we examine the Activity Diagrams notation of this latest version of UML in terms of a collection of patterns developed for assessing control-flow capabilities of languages used in the area of process-aware information systems. The purpose of this analysis is to assess relative strengths and weaknesses of control-flow specification in Activity Diagrams and to identify ways of addressing potential deficiencies. In addition, the pattern-based analysis will yield typical solutions to practical process modelling problems and expose some of the ambiguities in the current UML 2.0 specification [9].