Error Detection in Multiple State Diagrams

This paper presents Super State Analysis (SSA) for analyzing UML multiple state and sequence diagrams to detect the inconsistencies. SSA model uses transition set that captures relationship information that is not specifiable in UML diagrams. The SSA model uses the transition set to link transitions of multiple state diagrams together. The analysis generates three different sets automatically. These generated sets are compared to the provided sets to detect the inconsistencies. Because SSA considers multiple UML state diagrams, it discovers inconsistencies that cannot be discovered when considering only a single UML state diagram. The analysis identifies five types of inconsistencies: impossible super states, unreachable super states, illegal transitions, missing transitions, and illegal