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Message sequence chart

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The diagram shows three entities. At start the phone is disconnected. A user tries to establish a connection. A connection request is sent to the switch and a timer is started. An alternative deals with two possibles responses: 1 - The timer goes off because the switch did not reply and the phone goes back to the disconnected state.2 - The switch grants the connection and the call is established.

A message sequence chart (or MSC) is an interaction diagram from the SDL family standardized by the International Telecommunication Union.

The purpose of recommending MSC (Message Sequence Chart) is to provide a trace language for the specification and description of the communication behaviour of system components and their environment by means of message interchange. Since in MSCs the communication behaviour is presented in a very intuitive and transparent manner, particularly in the graphical representation, the MSC language is easy to learn, use and interpret. In connection with other languages it can be used to support methodologies for system specification, design, simulation, testing, and documentation.

History

The first version of the MSC standard was released in March 12, 1993.

The 1996 version added references, ordering and inlining expressions concepts, and introduced HMSC[1] (High-level Message Sequence Charts), which are the MSC way of expressing State diagrams.

The MSC 2000 version[2] added object orientation, refined the use of data and time in diagrams, and added the concept of remote method calls.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

However, proponents of MSC such as Ericsson think that MSC is better than UML 2.0 for modelling large or complex systems.[3]

Live Sequence Charts

David Harel thinks that MSC still has several shortcomings such as:

  • MSC propose a weak partial ordering semantics that makes it impossible to capture some behavioral requirements,
  • The relationship between the MSC requirements and the executable specification is not clear.

To address what he sees as weaknesses in the MSC model, David Harel proposed an extension on the MSC standard called LSC (Live Sequence Charts).[4][5][6]

Tools

See also

References

  1. ^ "HMSC". sdl-forum.org. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
  2. ^ Øystein Haugen. "MSC 2000" (PDF). Ericsson. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
  3. ^ Øystein Haugen (June 2000). "UML 2.0 vs. SDL/MSC – Ericsson Position Statement" (PDF). Ericsson. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
  4. ^ David Harel (2003-04-08). "Message Sequence Charts" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-09-20.
  5. ^ David Harel (2005-02-22). "LSCs: Breathing Life into Message Sequence Charts". Formal Methods in System Design. Retrieved 2009-09-20.
  6. ^ David Harel (2002). "Multiple instances and symbolic variables in executable sequence charts". Association for Computing Machinery. Retrieved 2009-09-20.


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