Message sequence chart: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:27, 29 March 2013

Revision as of 16:08, 9 August 2013

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A '''message sequence chart''' (or '''MSC''') is an [[interaction diagram]] from the [[Specification and Description Language|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

The main area of application for message sequence charts is as for communication behaviour in [[Real-time computing|real-time systems]], more specifically telecommunication [[electronic switching system]]s.

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 1992.<ref>{{citeMarch web12, 1993.

| url=http://www.sdl-forum.org/MSC2000present/sld006.htm

| title=The history of MSC

| publisher=sdl-forum.org

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

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

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| accessdate=2009-09-19}}</ref> ('''H'''igh-level '''M'''essage '''S'''equence '''C'''harts), which are the MSC way of expressing [[State diagram]]s.

The latest MSC 2000 version<ref>{{cite web

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

| title=MSC 2000

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| publisher=sdl-forum.org

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

Latest version has been published in February 2011.

==Comparison to UML==

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==Tools==

* [http://www.pragmadev.com/product/tracing.html MSCPragmaDev Tracer] Free tracing tool based on PragmaDev Real Time Developer StudioMSC.

*[[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.