Towards a Rigorous Semantics of UML Supporting its Multiview Approach

Dipartimento di Informatica e Scienze dell'Informazione

Towards a Rigorous Semantics of UML Supporting its Multiview Approach

G. Reggio , M. Cerioli and E. Astesiano .
In Heinrich Hussmann, editor, Proceedings of FASE'01, number 2029 in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 171--186, Berlin, 2001. Springer Verlag.

We discuss the nature of the semantics of the UML. Contrary to the case of most languages, this task is far from trivial. Indeed, not only the UML notation is complex and its informal description is incomplete and ambiguous, but we also have the UML multiview aspect to take into account.

We propose a general schema of the semantics of the UML, where the different kinds of diagrams within a UML model are given individual semantics and then such semantics are composed to get the semantics on the overall model.

Moreover, we fill part of such a schema, by using the algebraic language CASL as a metalanguage to describe the semantics of class diagrams, state machines and the complete UML formal systems. /

This paper is available through anonymous ftp at ftp.disi.unige.it, in pdf format /pub/person/CerioliM/FASE2001.pdf (290K) as well as in gzipped postscript format /pub/person/CerioliM/FASE2001.ps.gz (102K)