Generating out of a C program: Component diagram, SYSML and SystemC - uml

I have a C project. It has been imported to Rhapsody 8.2.
Now I want to generate:
Component diagram.
Structural diagram.
Dataflow.
UML
SystemC
How to do that?
Thanks in advance
Amnon

You can add a self-populating Object Model Diagram by ticking the 'Populate Diagram' tick box when you create it, then selecting the packages/classes to include.
I think the others will have to be created and populated manually.

You have imported a 'C' program. I think you have used "Reverse Engineering" to do that.
As already mentioned in one of the answers: C is not OO so you have little chance to derive the information that you want to generate simply because that information is not in your your source code.
You have probably already noticed that there will be no Classes with attributes and operations in your model, just files with variables and functions.
I'm always surprised to see people's expectations to reverse engineering... RE is a so-called GIGO process: Garbage in- Garbage out. Don't listen to sales people that tell you that there are tools that can automatically document your code afterwards: There is no such thing possible.
Component diagram. - Have to made by Hand
Structural diagram. - you can right click on a function and choose "populate flowchart"
Dataflow. - There is no Dataflow diagram in UML
UML. - As already said, there is not enough information in your source code to convert your C to a readable UML diagram
SystemC - You have to add a lot of information to create System-C, as already stated above, please contact Sodius in France or the US, they can provide you with more information.
W.

Related

Send message between swim lanes in a flowchart

When designing flowchart models for my programing, I sometimes ask myself if I am drawing email communication between swim lanes the best way. Perhaps there are some who has better suggestions to describe the following process?
A wants a specific customer list from B. To do that, A has to send a request to B - it could be an email. B creates the list and sends it back to A.
UPDATE
My initial illustration wasn't UML so I try with this instead - ready for your comments:
Actually this is a perfect and overall used approach. Rather than using swim lanes, which are just graphical elements on the diagram, you should use ActivityPartitions (which are real UML elements) which you can classify with the actors in question.
Further you should use ActivityInitial (full circle) and ActivityFinal (hollow circle with large dot in center) to mark the start and end of your flow.
For more examples see here.
N.B. Just noticing this is tagged with Visio. Since Visio is a pure drawing tool you should consider using a real UML modeling tool instead.
P.S. I see that Geert removed the UML tag. So I may have been deceived by the question and thinking of this as being an UML activity diagram. So that's what my answer refers to. Anyhow, since flow charts are ancestors of activity diagrams this might help as well.

What UML diagrams are required for a web application

I am new to UML designing and read few articles on this. bit confused where to start..
Do i need to prepare all of the UML diagrams for a web application or is some diagrams are only essential for an application.
Thanks,
Start from Use Case - define, who will use your application(actors) and what they will do with it(use cases). Also, join close use cases into subsystems.
Component diagram - what main parts the system has and what info they will send to each other and if some part belongs to another
Go on with State machine - define what states will have your components and on what reasons can they change they states to other ones.
Deployment diagram will define on what PCs will these components live and about the connections/protocols/interfaces between them
Plan your user interfaces - now only the set of pages and frames and navigation between them and commands on them. Do not solve placing and colors yet
Class diagrams for every component
If for for some of your classes some instances are specifically important, use object diagram.
Draw the look of the UI
Code.
UML is there to help you. Pick only what you need. You'll hardly ever need all diagram types. Plus, it is convenient for the reader if he needs to know only a predefined UML subset to understand your draft.

How to mark classes as Obsolete on UML

I have a few classes on my UML diagram which should not be used, but still available.
Is there any way to mark these classes as obsolete?
I've seen <> notation somewhere, but can not find how to use it in MS Visio 2003.
And another question. Should these classes be on UML diagram at all? I can imagine answer on this question would be on "per case" basis, but I'm interested in hearing general opinions. And if you put obsolete classes on your UML diagrams, why you did it? or why not?
Thanks!
It's not clear to me what you mean by " should not be used, but still available.". If they need to stay in the diagram but you want to visualize that they are now obsolete you can create a new stereotype <> and use it to annotate the obsolete classes.
If you don't really need them in the diagram then use a version control system for models as duffymo suggested. A list of version control tools for modeling elements can be founde here
I think if you're going to take the time to update the UML, the best idea is to remove it from the model. Leaving a bunch of "obsolete" diagram elements hanging around makes as much sense as keeping commented code in a version control system. Let the version control system manage the history.
I think that your model should include all your project and then you extract views from your model. If a class is not having any value in a specific view then this class should be removed from your class diagram view diagram but not from your model.
If you want to keep this class in your diagram then you can add a small comment (usually yellow square) or change the color of the class. I usually use green for class and then change the color to grey/green almost invisible but still visible color for non strategic classes.
Hope this help.

Which diagram I should change in UML?

Can anyone tell which UML diagram I should change if there is a slight change in the design of application.
The change is -> Earlier the application was using Active directory for authentication now I want to use the Membership provider instead.
I want to keep the change minimum in diagrams.
Thanks
Sounds like component diagrams or class diagrams. Check out the following topics and illustrations for VS 2010 Ultimate RC:
UML Component Diagrams: Reference at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd409390%28VS.100%29.aspx:
A component diagram shows the parts of a design for a software system. A component diagram helps you
visualize the high-level structure of the system and the service behavior that those pieces provide
and consume through interfaces.
UML Class Diagrams: Reference at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd409437%28VS.100%29.aspx
A UML class diagram describes the object and information structures used by your application, both
internally and in communication with its users. It describes the information without reference to any
particular implementation.
It will surely depend the diagrams at your disposal. Sound like a correction in one of the static diagram types, like the component diagram ...
This of course depends on how you structure your documents and your uml-diagrams.
In general I have a Conceptual model, Class Diagram and a Design Diagram which are diractly linked to the architecture. And then you should in most cases have System Sequence Diagrams and more. However, depending on how your structure is and to minimize the "changes" required.
I would suggest that you use something more generic for the parts that might be changed. Active Directory Authentication and Membership Provider Authentication is both Authentication methods, which means that you can, instead of displaying the whole sequence at the Authentication step, just use "Authentication".
Now, in the conceptual models and in the design + class diagrams, you will need to change and add some fields, tables or whatever is added. But it shouldn't matter if you need to add more or less, because the documents need to reflect upon your software as accurate as possible.
So, to minimize changes, use more generic types.

Structure and behavior in UML

I had some questions regarding the structure and behavior of a model, using UML, and the relationship between the two :
Did you find any limitations for UML regarding the specification or understanding of the relationship between structure and behavior?
I was wondering if you have any practical ideas of how one can optimize the relationship between structure and behavior, using UML.
Do you know any UML tools that help understand better this relationship or represent it much easier?
Thanks
Yes:
A sequence diagram is readable at a high level, showing how a transaction involves a few components; but it's not good (not readable) at the detailed level, showing how a transaction involves dozens of methods (method A calls method B, which gets data from methods D and E, and then invokes method F, etc.).
Looking at a class diagram, you might see a based class with several subclasses; this tells you nearly nothing about the behaviour of the classes (it only tells you that they may have some behaviour in common, or at least a common API, plus some individual behaior that's unique to each subclass).
That's a big question. A quick answer is, "Attach text notes to the objects: diagrams aren't sufficient without descriptive text."
No, I don't really; a UML tool help you create UML diagrams (and generate code from the diagrams), but it's up to you how you use it. There was a neat product described in the book titled Real-Time Object-Oriented Modeling (1994) which was an executable model, i.e. the model itself had behaviour, but I know of no UML tool quite like that. The closest I know of is being able to "round trip" between the model and code (i.e. generate code from the model, and the model from code).
Sounds like a homework problem. Wiki can tell you all about UML.
The limitations of UML are the same as any form of communication. The simpler your language, the fewer things you can communicate and the clearer your communications will become. A shape like a square or circle identifies a structure, a line indicates relationship, an arrow indicates movement, or flow. You could enhance this by defining the meaning of other properties, like direction, boldness, color, number count, different shapes. You could incorporate multimedia layers like audio or video, motion, tooltips- but now we're not talking about UML anymore.
My favorite UML tools are a whiteboard and some dry erase markers.
I think that things have changed, regarding UML's usefulness to melculetz.
In Visual Studio 2010, I can define an association relationship, that will generate composite classes. I can specify the multiplicity and class qualifiers. I can also generate classes from the model.
Presently, I am attempting to visually model the phases of a system, in order to visually define the methods for a state-machine object. That is my attempt to integrate structure and behaviour. Check my blog to see how I get on.
Class Analyser visually expresses the behaviour of class objects. Limitation removed.
I think that the answer is to turn your development methods towards MDA. You will generate more classes, but the payoff is in terms of manageability and re-use (where you template your efforts).
I am still working through my model but, I find VS2010 promises good tools for managing the development process. I have yet to investigate UI modelling, but have heard the rumours. I may have it all wrong but I think that, by working with Lightswitch, I may be able to model the UI also.
UML allows you to specify the signature of a method, and group methods into classes, but it says nothing at all about what code you use as implementation. If that's what you mean by "behavior", I don't think UML addresses it at all at the class level.
It's even worse at the UI level. My impression of UML is that it's woefully inadequate for specifying UIs.
I think the effort required to embed everything into UML is greater than or equal to coding the application, with the added burdens of UML tools being poor IDEs and inability to prove correctness of UML the way you can with unit testing.
UML is way oversold, IMO. I consider it a convenient notation for informal communication between developers, nothing more. It has never been and never will be the object oriented equivalent of engineering drawings.

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