EA doesn't consider an action to be a behaviour

[xarx]

Hello.

I'm writing state diagrams. On a transition, I'd like to check "Effect is a Behaviour", but EA allows me to choose or create only activities (or operations), not actions. In particular, I want to use a Send Event action.

Also, I've met with this problem - that EA does not consider actions to be regular behaviours - on different places in UML diagramming. Though I can't remember now.

This problem is in EA for years, I think I've already reported it. It is in version 8, and still persists in version 9.

   Martin.

[Geert Bellekens]

Martin,

That is probably because an Action isn't a behavior .
So EA is correct in not allowing you to select an Action as behavior.
(but it is wrong in allowing you to select an Operation, as that is also not a behavior)

Geert

[xarx]

Geert,

I used the same terminology that EA uses at this place:

"Behavioral elements such as Activities, Interaction, Operations etc"

According to the "UML Reference Manual" (by Rumbaugh, Jacobson, Booch), effect on a transition can be either an action or an activity. By checking the "Effect is a Behavior" check-box, EA allows me to choose Activities and only some sort of Actions (i.e. operations).

I'd like to EA allows me to choose any sort of Action, especially the "broadcast event" action.

Btw., some sort of actions seem to me unsuitable for being used on a transition as an effect - e.g. the "accept event" action - so the above specification of transition effect is evidently imprecise.

    Martin.

[Geert Bellekens]

Martin,

EA doesn't allow you to select any type of Action, but only Operations (which aren't a "kind" of action).
Allowing operations as the effect of a transition is wrong with regards to UML specs.

I really don't care what the UML Reference Manual says, the only real reference is the uml specification.
For version 2.3 (p587) it states:

effect: Behavior[0..1]
Specifies an optional behavior to be performed when the transition fires.

And since neither Actions nor Operations are subtypes of Behavior they shouldn't be allowed there.

Geert

[xarx]

OK, I see that transition effect as an behavior is new to UML2.x, in UML1.x it was an action. Under these circumstances, I don't understand how am I supposed to express an effect consisting only of a call or send signal action, e.g.

      someTrigger[someGuard]/send someSignal

using a behaviour. Is this textual notation considered to be equivalent to creation of an activity consising merely of the single action "send someSignal"?

This looks as if transition associations to behaviours were meant for machine generation only, not for human authors or readers. Besides, was it really meant that I can use e.g. a whole state-machine for a transition effect?

     Martin.