UML Representation: Signal. Also commonly represented as a class stereotyped <<signal>>.
Signals are used to define entities for asynchronous messaging. They are suitable for communication in
distributed and concurrent systems. Avoid naming signals in a 'receiver-specific' manner - this limits
their generality and usefulness, bearing in mind that signals may be broadcasted to a set of objects. The
important thing is to communicate the interesting occurrence the sender has detected (which prompted it to
send the signal). A signal may also have a list of parameters which are represented as its attributes.
Operations may be provided on a signal to access these attributes.
Since Signals are a specialization of Work product: Event, signal tailoring is dependent on the tailoring
for Work product: Event. For example, the Work product: Event information can be captured in textual form
(such as a table in the Software Architecture Document), while the Signal-specific properties are captured
in a visual model.
|