Chapter 10. Interaction Diagrams

A fundamental goal of UML 2.0 is to allow users to capture more than just structural relationships. UML 2.0 is intended to capture processes and flows of events. Interaction diagrams draw from nearly every other facet of the language to put together a set of diagrams that capture communications between objects. UML 2.0 has greatly expanded UML 1.x's ability to describe complex flow of control; one of the largest sections of the UML 2.0 specification is the interaction diagrams section. Because of the expanded functionality, quite a bit of new terminology has been introduced. We'll cover all the terms in this chapter and try to give you a feel for what terms are really critical and which are there to formalize the specification.