A Standardized Textual Language for UML Modeling: Review and Suggestions

Abstract

Articulating structure, behavior, architecture, and business processes through Unified Modeling Language (UML) notations and tools is essential for specifying new system developments. UML is recognized as the de facto standard in software engineering and development. A variety of tools have been created to support UML modeling, which are employed by project managers, system analysts, business analysts, and architects to produce UML diagrams via text-based instructions or visual drawing tools. These tools often use proprietary notations for text-based instructions. This paper surveys several popular UML textual notations and introduces a formalism for a new textual language, Standard Textual Unified Modeling Language (STUML), which can serve as a standard for UML text-based modeling tools. STUML seeks to standardize the expression of UML notations in text-based tools and can be directly utilized or mapped to the notations of existing textual and graphical tools. Designed for use in diagrams, class diagrams, and use case diagrams, STUML is intended to be easy to write, easy to read, and usable without specialized editors. STUML demonstrates significant potential and could become the new standard for textual UML notations.