How do you show a standard UML return message in a sequence diagram?

[mse]

I have two lifelines A and B:

Code: [Select]


A ---- message(y) ---> B

A <--- message(y:24)---- B


My question is, how do I get a standard UML value specication as shown in the standard? For example, if there is a variable that is assigned in an argument, it uses a colon character ':', like y:24 showing that the in/out variable was assigned 24. How do I do this in EA?

Here is the exerpt from the standard:

A reply-message-label is used for reply Messages. It has the following form:

<reply-message-label> ::= [<assignment-target> ‘=’] <message-name>
[‘(’ [<output-argument-list>] ‘)’] [‘:’ <value-specification>]

<output-argument-list> ::= <output-argument> [‘,’<output-argument>]*
<output-argument> ::= <out-parameter-name> ‘:’ <value-specification> |
<assignment-target> ‘=’ <out-parameter-name> [‘:’ <value-specification>]

[Geert Bellekens]

I don't think that notation is supported by EA.

Geert

[qwerty]

Maybe you simply use a plain message for the return. There you can specify the details.

q.

[mse]

A reply message however would technically need to be defined on the target lifeline, which is not quite what I intend since it's the data that is returned.

Any other alternatives of doing this even if it's an EA-style way?

[Geert Bellekens]

We used linked notes back in the day to indicate the values passed in the different parameters.

I haven't used that much SD's in recent years, so I don't know if there are better alternatives by now.

Geert

[qwerty]

Uhm. I just added a signature to a return message and it appeared (although after some strange EA message - well, EA...). In past EA versions the properties dialog for messages was better in that respect as you needed to close the dialog and the changes were applied. Now you get a crude message :-/

q.