Automating the Synthesis of UML StateChart Diagrams from Multiple Collaboration Diagrams

The use of scenarios has become a popular technique for requirements elicitation and specification building. Since scenarios capture only partial descriptions of system behavior, an approach for scenario composition and integration is needed to produce more complete specifications. The Unified Modeling Language (UML), which is emerging as a unified notation for object- oriented modeling, provides a suitable framework for scenario acquisition using Use Case diagrams and Collaboration diagrams and for behavioral specification using StateChart diagrams; yet it does not propose any specific modeling process, let alone a process for transforming scenarios into behavioral specifications. In this paper, we suggest a four-step process for synthesizing behavioral specifications from scenarios. It generates from a given set of Collaboration diagrams the StateChart diagrams of all the objects involved. Our approach is incremental and is fully compliant with the UML. Furthermore, it provides an elegant solution to the problem of scenario interleaving. The underlying algorithm has been implemented and validated with several examples, and is fit for integration into CASE tools supporting the UML.