Developing State Diagrams Using a State Specialization Technique

摘要

A state diagram models the dynamic aspect of a class or a system, representing its behavior over its lifetime. Our survey shows that there are few systematic methods of developing state diagrams. In this paper, we present a systematic method of developing state diagrams using a state specialization technique. Our method identifies meaningful states of a target class before a state diagram is constructed. We use three state-identification rules - state-valued attributes, association paths, and conditions stated in integrity constraints. By using our technique, system designers will be able to systematically identify interesting and meaningful states.