Intra- and interdiagram consistency checking of behavioral multiview models

Multiview modeling languages like UML are a very powerful tool to deal with the ever increasing complexity of modern software systems. By splitting the description of a system into different views—the diagrams in the case of UML—system properties relevant for a certain development activity are highlighted while other properties are hidden. This multiview approach has many advantages for the human modeler, but at the same time it is very susceptible to various kinds of defects that may be introduced during the development process. Besides defects which relate only to one view, it can also happen that two different views, which are correct if considered independently, contain inconsistent information when combined. Such inconsistencies between different views usually indicate a defect in the model and can be critical if they propagate up to the executable system.