The Protocol State Machine in Unified Modeling Language (UML) helps to express the usage protocol or lifecycle of classifiers. It shows which operations are available for the classifier under which state and conditions, thus provide call sequence of the classifier’s operation. Instead of manually create the protocol state machine, you can also generate it via Visual Paradigm’s Open API. In this article we will show you how to create protocol state machine with Open API.

Protocol State Machine which we are going to create via Open API

This is the protocol state machine we are going to create. It consist of 1 initial state, 3 states and 5 transitions. Each transition having a call trigger and one of the transition also with guard condition defined.

Create Blank Protocol State Diagram

Let’s start by create a blank diagram. We can use the DiagramManager.createDiagram operation to create a blank new diagram.

DiagramManager diagramManager = ApplicationManager.instance().getDiagramManager();
IStateDiagramUIModel diagram = (IStateDiagramUIModel) diagramManager.createDiagram(IDiagramTypeConstants.DIAGRAM_TYPE_STATE_DIAGRAM);
// name the diagram as "door"
diagram.setName("door");
// specify the diagram as Protocol State Machine
diagram.setProtocolStateMachine(true);

Create blank protocol state machine

Create the Class for our Protocol State Machine

When the diagram is ready we can create the class and use it as the classifier of the protocol state machine.

// create "Door" class as the classifier of the protocol state machine
IClass doorClassModel = IModelElementFactory.instance().createClass();
doorClassModel.setName("Door");

After the class being created, we then create several operations in the class which will be in the state machine.

// define operations for the Door class
IOperation opsCreate = doorClassModel.createOperation();
opsCreate.setName("create");
opsCreate.setVisibility(IOperation.VISIBILITY_PRIVATE);

Repeat the steps above to create the open, close, lock and unlock operations.

Create classifier and operations

Finally we specify the protocol state machine as the sub-diagram of the class.

// specify the protocol state machine as sub-diagram of Door class
doorClassModel.addSubDiagram(diagram);

Create Initial Pseudo State

Once the classifier was created we then start to create the content of our diagram. We starting from the initial pseudo state.

// create initial pseudo state model
IInitialPseudoState initialState1Model = IModelElementFactory.instance().createInitialPseudoState();
// create shape for initial pseudo state
IInitialPseudoStateUIModel initialState1Shape = (IInitialPseudoStateUIModel) diagramManager.createDiagramElement(diagram, initialState1Model);
// specify its location and size
initialState1Shape.setBounds(22, 81, 20, 20);

Create initial pseudo state

Next we move on to create the states.

Create States

To create the states:

// create model for "opened" state
IState2 stateOpenedModel = IModelElementFactory.instance().createState2();
stateOpenedModel.setName("opened");
// create shape for "opened" state
IState2UIModel stateOpenedShape = (IState2UIModel) diagramManager.createDiagramElement(diagram, stateOpenedModel);
// specify its location and size
stateOpenedShape.setBounds(135, 71, 80, 40);
// set to automatic calculate the initial caption position
stateOpenedShape.setRequestResetCaption(true);

Now let’s try to create the other states in the diagram.

Create states

Create Transition

After the states are being created, we can then start to create the transitions. To create the transition:

// create transition model between initial state and opened state
ITransition2 tranInitialOpenedModel = IModelElementFactory.instance().createTransition2();
// specify the from end as the initial state, and the to end is opened state
tranInitialOpenedModel.setFrom(initialState1Model);
tranInitialOpenedModel.setTo(stateOpenedModel);
// create connector into diagram
ITransition2UIModel tranInitialOpenedShape = (ITransition2UIModel) diagramManager.createConnector(diagram, tranInitialOpenedModel, initialState1Shape, stateOpenedShape, null);
tranInitialOpenedShape.setRequestResetCaption(true);

Create transitions

Create Call Trigger for the Transition

All transitions in our model do have call trigger to indicate the event where the transition being fired. To create the call trigger:

// create call trigger
ICallTrigger callTriggerCreateModel = IModelElementFactory.instance().createCallTrigger();
callTriggerCreateModel.setName("create");
// specify the operation for the call trigger
callTriggerCreateModel.setOperation(opsLock);
// add call trigger to transition
tranInitialOpenedModel.addTrigger(callTriggerCreateModel);

Repeat the steps above to create the call triggers for the rest of the transitions.

Create call triggers

Create Guard Condition for the Transition

As in the diagram show in the beginning of the article, the transition from opened to closed state do have a guard condition defined. To create the guard condition:

// create constraint element as the guard condition
IConstraintElement guard = IModelElementFactory.instance().createConstraintElement();
// specify the detail of the guard condition
guard.setName("doorway->isEmpty()");
// set the guard condition into transition
tranOpenedClosedModel.setGuard(guard);

Create guard condition for transition

Show up the diagram

When everything is ready we can show up the diagram.

diagramManager.openDiagram(diagram)

Sample Plugin

The sample plugin attached in this article demonstrate how to create state diagram using Open API. After you deploy the plugin into Visual Paradigm, you can then click the plugin button in the application toolbar to trigger it.

Trigger sample plugin

Download Sample Plugin

You can click this link to download the sample plugin.