Author Topic: InformationFlow between Actor and UC  (Read 4628 times)

PDC

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InformationFlow between Actor and UC
« on: July 15, 2025, 07:34:01 pm »
I seem to remember ages ago seeing Something Somewhere that said it is incorrect to link Actors to UCs with InformationFlows that describe the information flowing in/out of that UC (i.e. the Actor is using a system via that UC and the UC diagram also specifies the data flowing in/out of the system's Behaviours).
However, para 20.2.1.5 "InformationFlow > Constraints" of the UML spec states "The sources and targets of the information flow can only be one of the following kind: Actor... UseCase...", which would seem to imply that it is permitted to attach InformationFlows to the Actor-UC Associations on a UC diagram.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is it permitted/forbidden/unrecommended?

If nothing else I guess that maybe it is 'permitted' but only when it is technically correct to do so (i.e. when the Actor is actually the entity that literally sends that InformationItem into the system or receives from it).
Phil