Junction

Description

Junction pseudostates are used to design complex transitional paths in StateMachine diagrams. A Junction can be used to combine or merge multiple paths into a shared transition path. Alternatively, a Junction can split an incoming path into multiple paths, similar to a Fork pseudostate. Unlike Forks or Joins, Junctions can apply guards to each incoming or outgoing transition, such that if the guard expression is False, the transition is disabled.

This example illustrates how guards can be applied to transitions coming into or out of a Junction pseudostate.

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• StateMachines
• Pseudostates
• Fork
• Join

OMG UML Specification:

The OMG Unified Modeling Language specification, (v2.5.1, p.313) states:

This type of Pseudostate is used to connect multiple Transitions into compound paths between States. For example, a junction Pseudostate can be used to merge multiple incoming Transitions into a single outgoing Transition representing a shared continuation path. Or, it can be used to split an incoming Transition into multiple outgoing Transition segments with different guard Constraints.

NOTE. Such guard Constraints are evaluated before any compound transition containing this Pseudostate is executed, which is why this is referred to as a static conditional branch.

It may happen that, for a particular compound transition, the configuration of Transition paths and guard values is such that the compound transition is prevented from reaching a valid state configuration. In those cases, the entire compound transition is disabled even though its Triggers are enabled. (As a way of avoiding this situation in some cases, it is possible to associate a predefined guard denoted as “else” with at most one outgoing Transition. This Transition is enabled if all the guards attached to the other Transitions evaluate to false). If more than one guard evaluates to true, one of these is chosen. The algorithm for making this selection is not defined.