Drawing Sequence Diagrams [closed]

Question

I'm looking for an easy language/command line utility to draw sequence and timing diagrams (could be 2 different tools). I've already found Mscgen for sequence diagram drawing and looks pretty good, but I'm studying other possibilities.

Thanks

Answer 1

PlantUML. http://plantuml.sourceforge.net/sequence.html

PlantUML is used to draw UML diagram, using a simple and human readable text description.

The generated images can then be used without any reference to the GPL/LGPL/ASL/EPL/MIT license. It is not even necessary to stipulate that they have been generated with PlantUML, although this will be appreciate by PlantUML team.

In my experience it has been easy to use and it produces nice looking diagrams. I can't recommend it more highly.

Output file types:

-tsvg     To generate images using SVG format -teps     To generate images using EPS format -txmi     To generate XMI file for class diagram -thtml    To generate HTML files for class diagram -ttxt     To generate images with ASCII art -tutxt    To generate images with ASCII art using Unicode characters 

Here is an example showing how to create a simple sequence diagram.

@startuml Alice -> Bob: Authentication Request Bob --> Alice: Authentication Response  Alice -> Bob: Another authentication Request Alice <-- Bob: another authentication Response @enduml 

You can also create more detailed diagrams by using lifeline activation and destruction:

@startuml participant User  User -> A: DoWork activate A  A -> B: << createRequest >> activate B  B -> C: DoWork activate C C --> B: WorkDone destroy C  B --> A: RequestCreated deactivate B  A -> User: Done deactivate A  @enduml