Towards a Semantics of Activity Diagrams with Semantic Variation Points

Abstract. UML activity diagrams have become an established notamodel control and data flow on various levels of abstraction, ranging from fine-grained descriptions of algorithms to high-level workflow models in business applications. A formal semantics has to capture the flexibility of the interpretation of activity diagrams in real systems, which makes it inappropriate to define a fixed formal semantics. In this paper, we define a semantics with semantic variation points that allow for a customizable, application-specific interpretation of activity diagrams. We examine concrete variants of the activity diagram semantics which may also entail variants of the syntax reflecting the intended use at hand.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: MODELS
• Authors: Hans Grönniger, Dirk Reiss, Bernhard Rumpe
• Keywords: Activity Diagram, Formal Semantics, MODELS 2010, Natural Language Processing, Semantics