actors in block definition diagrams?

[bhogan]

I have seen some example models showing actors within a block
definition diagram (BDD), and it seems to be an allowable technique as
an actor node is listed in Friedenthal/Moore/Steiner's A Practical
Guide to SysML, Table A.3, "Block Definition Diagram Nodes for
Representing Block Structure and Values". However my current SysML
setup does not seem to allow me to add actors to a BDD. I am
currently using Papyrus via Eclipse on a Mac, and Actor is not one of
the available nodes listed when developing a BDD, and it does not
allow me to drag-and-drop an actor created in the Model Explorer into
a BDD either.

I was wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem, or if
it's possible that Papyrus restricts Actors to being elements within
Use Case diagrams.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Brendan

[SRoth]

Hello Brendan,

in the UML 2 meta model, an actor is a specialized classifier, more
exactly: a specialized "BehavioredClassifier". Due to a constraint, an
actor can only have binary associations to use cases, components and
classes.

In SysML, use cases and actors are exactly the same as in UML, because
they are part of the metamodel package UML4SysML (see chapter 14 in
OMG SysML 1.2 formal specification). In table 8.1 ("Graphical nodes
defined in Block Definition diagrams") of the same specification
document the actor is explicitely listed as an element which can be
used on bdd's.

The fact that you cannot use actors in a bdd is a tool-specific issue.
Reffering to the specification it should be possible.

Kind regards,
Stephan Roth

On Sep 18, 12:47 am, bhogan <brendan.p.ho...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have seen some example models showing actors within a block
> definition diagram (BDD), and it seems to be an allowable technique as
> an actor node is listed in Friedenthal/Moore/Steiner's A Practical
> Guide to SysML, Table A.3, "Block Definition Diagram Nodes for
> Representing Block Structure and Values".  However my current SysML

> setup does not seem to allow me to add actors to a BDD. [...]

[Harrison, Jeff]

If an actor is an external interface for your system, then I would recommend displaying the actor as a block on the bdd. You can stereotype the block as you wish.

Brendan

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