Towards a Formal Operational Semantics of UML Statechart Diagrams

Statechart Diagrams are a notation for describing behaviours in the framework of UML, the Unified Modeling Language of object-oriented systems. UML is a semiformal language, with a precisely defined syntax and static semantics but with an only informally specified dynamic semantics. UML Statechart Diagrams differ from classical statecharts, as defined by Harel, for which formalizations and results are available in the literature. This paper sets the basis for the development of a formal semantics for UML Statechart Diagrams based on Kripke structures. This forms the first step towards model checking of UML Statechart Diagrams.