Generating BDD from swim lanes in an activity diagram

[TheSadPhilosopher]

Good morning everybody,

Excuse me if you find some poor english and please also forgive my
mistakes about SysML, i am a beginner on the subject.

After many web searches and long hours playing with main SysML tools
(with evaluation softwares including Artisan Studio, EA, Rhapsody and
Topcased) i can't find the option that allow what i want to do.

I will try to stay clear: From an activity diagram, i draw actions
first, then i draw swim lanes to allocate 1 or more activity to a
block (describing the structure of the system). But i would like the
activity partition to automatically generate a block with the same
name in a BDD in my model instead of creating the BDD and the blocks
myself and doing the allocation then. Simply i would like to create
the first jet of my bdd's directly from activity diagrams and not with
3 separate actions (1st creation of activity 2nd creation of bdd 3rd
allocation).

From the tutorials and books i read it seems that architects draw
swimlanes on activity diagrams, create the blocks manually and finally
associate both. It appears to me a waste of time, maybe a risk of
mistakes in translating swimlanes to blocks but above all, doesn't
that make swimlane a simple indicator on the activity diagram without
influencing the model?. I don't know if I'm seeing the things
correctly.

Maybe to clarify my question, i think to an analogy: In Artisan Studio
for example, when you are on the IBD of a block which is made of other
blocks (child) in your model, you can use a context menu function
called "populate" to populate the diagram with all of the blocks
composing the block shown in a BDD. Of course it doesn't place the
connectors automatically :) but it's faster than selecting the blocks
from the model browser.

Am i completly wrong on everything?

Any idea on how to do that with main tools?

Thank you.
Best Regards.
Julien

[Smith, Jim D]

Hi Julien,

I have experienced the same frustration with IBM Rational Rhapsody. It seems logical that placing an activity in a swimlane that represents a block would do an implicit allocation of that activity to that block, but Rhapsody does not. I've used Artisan Studio, but don't remember If it has the same weakness.

Jim Smith

Good morning everybody,

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[Robert Karban]

Hi,

In MagicDraw actions dropped/created in a swimlane which represents a
block/part are automatically
allocated to that block/part, i.e. the allocate relationship is created.

Regards,

Robert

[TheSadPhilosopher]

Hi all,

Thank you very much Jim and Robert for your answers.


First, Jim, you say : << It seems logical that placing an activity in

a swimlane that represents a block would do an implicit allocation of
that activity to that block, but Rhapsody does not >>

I agree, but one thing more i want is the block to be auto-created in
my model when i place the swimlane. Maybe my problem comes from the
fact that swimlanes are sometimes used for others things than
representing blocks.

In my case, i want to use a swimlane as a pre-representation of a
block in my system: i would like that each deposit of a swimlane on an
activity diagram automatically create a block, in the model, whose
name would be the name of the swimlane and with of course the
allocation between the swimlane actions and the block done
automatically.


Robert,
I agree about the automatic creation of allocate relationship. Thank
you for information. Like i said in my last sentence to Jim, in
addition to the automatic creation of allocate relationship to a block
when dropping a swimlane on action(s), i would like the blocks to be
automatically created on a BDD in my model (each block should then
have the name of the corresponding swimlane).


I hope it will be a bit more clear now.

Thank you again for the time you took.
Regards.

[FAUDOU Raphael]

Hi Florent,

Generally activity diagram is used to represent behaviour while blocks represent structure. Those are orthogonal concepts so you do not have a mapping 1:1 between activity swimlanes and blocks. You have often different activities that contain swimlanes allocated to the same blocks. So the rule "create one block for each swimlane" will create too many blocks to my opinion. You need something more flexible with possibility to reuse an existing block.
My two cents
raphaël

-----Message d'origine-----
De : sysml...@googlegroups.com [mailto:sysml...@googlegroups.com] De la part de TheSadPhilosopher
Envoyé : mercredi 25 avril 2012 06:20
À : SysML Forum
Objet : Re: EXTERNAL: [SysML Forum] Generating BDD from swim lanes in an activity diagram

Hi all,

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[TheSadPhilosopher]

Hi Raphaël, "merci" for your answer.

<< Generally activity diagram is used to represent behaviour while
blocks represent structure. >>

Totally agree.

<< You have often different activities that contain swimlanes
allocated to the same blocks.
So the rule "create one block for each swimlane" will create too many
blocks to my opinion. >>

I agree, but in the case you have different activities/actions
allocated (via swimlanes) to the same block(s), can't we say that the
swimlanes should have the same name in the different diagrams? For the
editor, it should not be too complicated to detect names are the same,
which means they correspond to the same block and only 1 block should
be created or if the program create all blocks, delete all except one.

<< You need something more flexible with possibility to reuse an
existing block. >>

I am not sure to understand. What i am sure of is it is very important
for me to have reusable blocks to keep a modular design. If i generate
a block (with the possibility to select where it must be placed into
the model) from a swimlane, why that block wouldn't be reusable?


Thank you and congratulations for the tutorials you worked on for
Topcased, they are well done, it is a valuable ressource for beginners
as me.

About Topcased, i don't know if you are in the dev team too, but, if
yes, congratulations again!. i have not spent much time on it at the
moment but i have seen something very promising. i say promising
because i found it maybe not mature enough yet for an easy use. i
found some bugs, i will ask support later to the team, because at the
moment i haven't done enough search on my own and i don't feel skilled
enough in sysml. To be sincere, my idea was to practice SysML on a
software like Artisan Studio Uno (or other pro tools, sometimes with
evaluation versions) and then to see how i can do the same thing in
Topcased.


Thanks,
Best Regards.
Florent (Julien is a pseudonym i use sometimes on the web but it's
idiot my email is shown around here somewhere.




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