Communication diagram
A communication diagram
in Unified Modeling Language 2.5.1 is a simplified version of the UML 1.x collaboration diagram.
UML has four types of interaction diagrams:
- Sequence diagram
- Communication diagram
- Interaction overview diagram
- Timing diagram
However, communication diagrams use the free-form arrangement of objects and links as used in Object diagrams. In order to maintain the ordering of messages in such a free-form diagram, messages are labeled with a chronological number and placed near the link the message is sent over. Reading a communication diagram involves starting at message 1.0, and following the messages from object to object.
Communication diagrams show much of the same information as sequence diagrams, but because of how the information is presented, some of it is easier to find in one diagram than the other. Communication diagrams show which elements each one interacts with better, but sequence diagrams show the order in which the interactions take place more clearly.