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Back in the Dark Ages (mid-1980s), I used Data Flow Diagrams from Structured Analysis a fair amount, and found them very useful.
My current employer loves UML. I normally use BOUML, which doesn't do non-UML drawings.
What is the UML drawing that corresponds to the Data Flow Diagram?
If there isn't one, what is the recommended UML diagram to present the corresponding data?
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A data flow diagram (DFD) is a graphical or visual representation using a standardized set of symbols and notations to describe a business's operations through data movement. They are often elements of a formal methodology such as Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM).
The data-flow diagram is a tool that is part of structured analysis and data modeling. When using UML, the activity diagram typically takes over the role of the data-flow diagram. A special form of data-flow plan is a site-oriented data-flow plan.
The main difference between activity diagram and flowchart is that an activity diagram is a UML behavior diagram that represents the workflow of stepwise activities of the system while a flowchart is a graphical diagram that represents the sequence of steps to solve a problem. UML stands for Unified Modeling Language.
Probably the closest thing is the activity diagram. It's not quite the same; more influenced by flow chart than dfd. However: you can do some of the useful things in DFDs, e.g. ADs do support concurrency and differentiate control flow from dataflow.
More details on comparisons & differences in this question.
[fwiw, I still use DFDs: they're simpler and more elegant in many circumstances]
hth.
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UML 2 has a very good analogue to a data flow diagram: the "information flow diagram".
Information flow diagrams are explained here: https://web.archive.org/web/20121118061853/http://www.uml-diagrams.org/information-flow-diagrams.html
Note that UML 2.5 has information flows and information items, but the term "information flow diagram" is not part of official UML 2.5 diagram taxonomy. So formally, you just create a class or component diagram with lots of information flows in it to obtain your "information flow diagram". I do this all the time, using information items of UML to represent my data.
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