Message sequence chart: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Interaction diagram from the SDL family}}

[[File:Typical MSC (Message Sequence Chart).png|thumb|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 [[Specification and Description Language|SDL]] family standardized by the [[International Telecommunication Union]].

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==History==

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

The 1996 version added references, ordering and [[Inline expansion|inlining]] expressions concepts, and introduced HMSC<ref>{{cite web

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The MSC 2000 version<ref>{{cite web

| url = http://folk.uio.no/intime/msc2000.pdf

| title = MSC 2000

| publisher = [[Ericsson]]

| author = Øystein Haugen

| accessdate = 2009-09-20}}</ref>19

| accessdate=2009-09-19}}</ref> added object orientation, refined the use of data and time in diagrams, and added the concept of remote method calls.<ref>{{cite web

|url-status = dead

|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20110607104113/http://folk.uio.no/intime/msc2000.pdf

|archivedate = 2011-06-07

| accessdate=2009-09-19}}</ref> added object orientation, refined the use of data and time in diagrams, and added the concept of remote method calls.<ref>{{cite web

| url=http://www.sdl-forum.org/MSC2000present/sld007.htm

| title=What is new in MSC 2000 relative to MSC 96.

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==Comparison to UML==

UML 2.0 [[Sequence diagram|Sequence Diagram]] is strongly inspired by the ITU-T MSC. Still, for historical reasons, the default basic principles are quite different:

* Lifelines

:* In an MSC, the vertical lines are autonomous execution entities. They usually represent state machines executing in parallel. The state machines need not be on the same computer.

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* Arrows

:* In an MSC an arrow is usually an asynchronous message sent from one entity to another one. Once the message is sent the sending entity resumes its execution.

:* In a Sequence Diagram an arrow is usually understood as an operation call on a class. It is therefore synchronous and the calling entity hangs until the operation returns.{{fact|date=November 2022}}

It has been said that MSC has been considered as a candidate for the [[Unified Modeling Language#Interaction diagrams|interaction diagrams]] in UML.<ref>{{cite web

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| year=1999

| publisher=[[University of Göttingen]]

| authorauthor1=Ekkart Rudolph, |author2=Jens Grabowski, |author3=Peter Graubmann | accessdate=2014-08-25}}</ref>

| accessdate=2014-08-25}}</ref>

However, proponents of MSC such as [[Ericsson]] think that MSC is better than [[Unified Modeling Language|UML 2.0]] for modelling large or complex systems.<ref>{{cite web

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* The relationship between the MSC requirements and the executable specification is not clear,

and proposed Live Sequence Charts (LSC) as an extension on the MSC standard .<ref>{{cite web

| url = http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~thiagu/public_papers/surveymsc.pdf

| title = Message Sequence Charts

| date = 2003-04-08

| author =[[ David Harel]]

| accessdate = 2009-09-20}}</ref><ref>{{cite web

|url-status = dead

| url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/hfnna0r9jbl54ya4/

|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20060826195305/http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~thiagu/public_papers/surveymsc.pdf

|archivedate = 2006-08-26

| author-link =[[ David Harel]]

}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal

| title=LSCs: Breathing Life into Message Sequence Charts

| publisherjournal=[[Formal Methods in System Design]]

| volume=19

| pages=45–80

| date=2005-02-22

| author=[[David Harel]]

| publisher=[[Formal Methods in System Design]]

| doi=10.1023/A:1011227529550

| author=[[David Harel]]

| s2cid=1551133

| accessdate=2009-09-20}}</ref><ref>{{cite web

|author-link = David Harel}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal

| url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=582429

| title=Multiple instances and symbolic variables in executable sequence charts

| journal=ACM SIGPLAN Notices

| volume=37

| issue=11

| pages=83–100

| year=2002

| author=David Harel

| publisher=[[Association for Computing Machinery]]

| doi=10.1145/583854.582429

| author=[[David Harel]]

| citeseerx=10.1.1.20.5984

| accessdate=2009-09-20}}</ref>

| author-link=David Harel

}}</ref>

==Tools==

* [http://www.pragmadev.com/product/tracing.html PragmaDev Tracer] Free tracing tool based on MSC.

*[[MscGen]] – Automatic generation of diagrams based on text descriptions of the messages.

*[http://sourceforge.net/projects/msc-generator/ MscGenerator] - Advanced version of MscGen, designed for telecom message flows.

*[http://websequencediagrams.com/ Web-based MSC Generator]

*[http://code.google.com/p/msc2svg/ Msc2Svg – Generates charts as SVG from a simple text description file]

*[http://www.eventhelix.com/eventstudio/ EventStudio – Message sequence chart generation tool]

*[http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/ltsa/ LTSA] – Supports the drawing and subsequent [[Formal verification|automated verification]] of message sequence charts.

*[http://plantuml.com/ PlantUML] – Versatile UML sequence diagrams based on text description.

*[http://scstudio.sourceforge.net Sequence Chart Studio] – Extends [[Microsoft Visio]] to draw and verify Z.120 compliant sequence charts.

*[http://trace2uml.tigris.org/ Trace2UML] – Tool for drawing and recording sequence charts.

*[http://satoss.uni.lu/mscpackage/ MSC Latex package] – a [[LaTeX]] package for creating message sequence charts.

*[http://tools.valid8.com/ Online PCAP to MSC chart Generator] – Generates MSC arrow diagram charts from PCAP files.

*[http://sequencediagram.org/ sequencediagram.org] – Free online text to MSC generator, support edit on Web UI directly.

==See also==

* [http://www.di.univaq.it/psc2ba/ PSC] Property Sequence Chart, a way to describe properties in an MSC<ref>{{cite webbook

| url=http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-38911-5_2

| title=Property Verification with MSC

| year=2013

| publisher=Springer

| authorauthor1=Emmanuel Gaudin, Eric|title Brunel}}</ref>= orSDL a2013: SequenceModel-Driven Diagram.Dependability Engineering| volume=7916

| pages=19–35

|author2=Eric Brunel | doi=10.1007/978-3-642-38911-5_2

| series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science

| isbn=978-3-642-38910-8

}}</ref> or a Sequence Diagram.

* [[Specification and Description Language|SDL]] Specification and Description Language, an MSC related ITU-T language.

* [[Unified Modeling Language#Interaction diagrams|Interaction diagrams in UML]].

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==External links==

* [http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Z.120 ITU-T Recommendation Z.120] message sequence chart (MSC)

*Michel Reniers: “[http://www.win.tue.nl/~michelr/Files/proefschrift.pdf Message sequence charts – syntax and semantics]”, PhD thesis, [[Eindhoven University of Technology]], 1999

{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Diagrams]]