Generating statechart designs from scenarios

This paper presents an algorithm for automatically generating UML statecharts from a collection of UML sequence diagrams. Computer support for this transition between requirements and design is important for a successful application of UML's highly iterative, distributed software development process. There are three main issues which must be addressed when generating statecharts from sequence diagrams. Firstly, conflicts arising from the merging of independently developed sequence diagrams must be detected and resolved. Secondly, different sequence diagrams often contain identical or similar behaviors. For a true interleaving of the sequence diagrams, these behaviors must be recognized and merged. Finally, generated statecharts usually are only an approximation of the system and thus must be hand-modified and refined by designers. As such, the generated artifact should be highly structured and readable. In terms of statecharts, this corresponds to the introduction of hierarchy. Our algorithm successfully tackles all three of these aspects and will be illustrated in this paper with a well-known ATM example.