Presented at the 4th Graduates' Seminar Day at King Fahd University, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

1. An Automatic Approach to Translate Use Cases to
Sequence Diagrams
Mohammed Misbhauddin
PhD Candidate
ICS Department, KFUPM
mdmisbha@kfupm.edu.sa

2. 1. Introduction
2. Unified Modeling Language
 Use Case Diagram
 Sequence Diagram
3. Related Work
4. Translation Methodology
5. Comparison
6. Conclusion and Future work

3. Agenda
Introduction
UML
1 of 3
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work
 Software engineering is an engineering
discipline that is concerned with all aspects
of software production.
 The software process consists of activities
that are involved in developing software
products. Basic activities are software
specification, design, development and
validation.

4. Agenda
Introduction
UML
2 of 3
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work
Requirement Analysis Design
Spec Class Diagram
SRS Use Case Diagram Sequence Diagram Deployment Diagram
Activity Diagram Communication Component Diagram
GUI Layout Diagram
State Machine Diagram
Plan Package
Diagram Object Diagram
Validation Implementation
Test cases
Code
Acceptance Summary
Test scenarios

5. Agenda
Introduction
UML
3 of 3
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work
Effect of
Miscommunication
Need: Automated approach to translate an artifact from one domain to another.

6. Agenda
Introduction
UML
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work
 UML is a graphical language which provides
notations and action semantics to describe and
design Object Oriented Software Systems.
 UML 2.0 Models Suite - 13 Different Diagrams
Class Diagram Timing Diagram State Machine Diagram
Sequence Diagram Use Case Diagram Object Diagram
Activity Diagram Component Diagram Composite Structure Diagram
Communication Diagram Deployment Diagram Interaction Overview Diagram
Package Diagram
6

7. Agenda
Introduction
UML
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Use case diagram is a powerful artifact used for the elicitation
Conclusion & Future work
of functional software requirements in the requirements
specification phase.
Use Case ID UC-05
Use Case Name Withdraw
Actors Customer
ATM System Main Flow
Login 1 INC Login
2 The ATM requests amount from
<<include>> customer.
Withdraw 3 Customer enters amount.
Customer <<extend>> 4 ATM retrieves balance from
Display account
Balance
A1 Amount is greater than Balance
Alternate Flow
A1 1. Display Error Message

8. Agenda
Introduction
UML
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work Sequence diagrams are used to model the dynamic behavior
of the software system depicting how objects interact by
passing messages constructed in the design phase.
Objects
Messages
Fragments

9. Agenda
Introduction
UML
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work ISSUES
UML Sequence •Incomplete
Diagram Generator
A Semi-Automatic
System from Use
utilization of
Approach to
Translating Use
Case Description
Using Natural
available constructs
Cases to Sequence
Diagrams 4th Language •Enforcing
Describing
Technology
Congress of Electronics,
Robotics and
Use-Case guidelines while
Relationships
of OO
Languages
Translating Automotive Mechanics
with Sequence composing
Use Cases
& Systems to Sequence
Diagrams descriptions
2007(a)
1999
Diagrams
The
Modeling User- •Either work at
Specifying Use Case System Interaction
IEEE Behavior With
Computer in Use Cases with sentence level or
Journal Dynamic Views
Automated
Software
Interaction Models construct level but
Engineering
2007(b) IEEE
not both.
Computational
Intelligence and
2000 Industrial
Journal
of Object Application
Technology 2008
2003

10. Agenda
Introduction
UML
1 of 7
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work
 The proposed approach can be summarized
as follows:
 Develop a metamodel for use case
descriptions and sequence diagrams.
 Parse use case steps.
 Identify mapping rules between these
meta-models.

11. Agenda
Introduction
UML
2 of 7
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work Phase 1: Syntactic Structure
Identification
Dictionary
Use case Parts-of- Translation
Description Speech Tagger Process
Use case parser
Sequence
Diagram

12. Agenda
Introduction
UML
3 of 7
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work Example
Customer inserts card into ATM
POS subject verb object1 preposition object2
Tagger
Dictionary
sender action argument Receiver
ATM
Inserts(card)
Customer

13. Agenda
Introduction
UML
4 of 7
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work Phase 2: Construct Based
Translation Architecture
Translation
Sequence Diagram
Use Case Metamodel Metamodel
conforms Translation Meta model conforms
Use Case Description Sequence Diagram
uses
receives produces
Misbhauddin, M. and M. Alshayeb, “Extending the UML Metamodel for Sequence Diagram to
Translation Process
Enhance Model Traceability”, the Fifth International Conference on Software Engineering
Advances, Nice, France, August 22-27, 2010

14. Agenda
Introduction
UML
5 of 7
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison Start
Conclusion & Future work
T Anchor F
Metamodel
Mapping
Parse and
Algorithm
Include
Identify
(excerpt)
components
ALT
Insert a “ref” ………..
fragment
alt opt break
….

15. Agenda
Introduction
UML
6 of 7
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison Example Use Case ID UC-05
Conclusion & Future work
Use Case Withdraw
Name
Actors Customer
ATM account Main Flow
1 INC Login
Customer
2 The ATM requests
amount from customer.
ref Login 3 Customer enters amount
in the ATM.
4 ATM retrieves balance
from account
Request(amount) A1 Amount is greater than
Balance
Alternate
enters(amount) Flow
retrieve(balance) A1 1. Display Error
Message

16. Agenda
Introduction
UML
7 of 7
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work
• The tool will allow
the user to enter
descriptions of all the
use cases.
•These cases can
then be converted
into a sequence
diagram.
• The output is in the
form of an XMI file.
•This XMI file can be
imported in any UML
CASE tool

17. Agenda
Introduction
UML
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work Case-study: A sample of five student projects with an average
of 15 use cases was used.
UC SEQ Sentence
Composition
Research Constructs Constructs Classification
Restrictions
(5) (20) (%age)
1999 1 3 43.53% 8
Construct Sentence
Syntax
2000 3 5 49% 4
2007(a) 1 3 45% 7
2003 4+1 13 N/A N/A
2007(b) 4 13 N/A N/A
Based
2008 4 14 N/A N/A
Proposed 2010 5 17 74.08% 2
Approach

18. Agenda
Introduction
UML
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work
 Communication gap between the specification
domain and the design domain leads to an incorrect
and inconsistent system.
 An automatic approach to translating use case
descriptions to sequence diagrams is presented.
 UML metamodel for use case specification and
sequence diagram is used to guide the translation
process.
 This work is supported by KACST Research Grant
(No. a-i: 18-20).

19. Agenda
Introduction
UML
Related Work
Translation Methodology
Comparison
Conclusion & Future work
 Tagging is done over simple sentences.
Compound sentences should also be handled in
the future.
 Increasing the classification rate by enriching
the dictionary using AI techniques rather than
English Language Dictionaries.
 Work is going on to convert the XML output
representation of the sequence diagram to a
graphical form.

20. I would like to acknowledge the support of
my dissertation advisor Dr. Mohammad
Alshayeb.