needsequence

New in version 0.5.5.

needsequence adds a sequence-chart to your documentation:

.. needsequence:: My sequence chart
   :start: USER_A, USER_D
   :link_types: links, triggers

My sequence chart

Show used needs for above example…

User: Mr. A USER_A

style: blue_border links outgoing: ACT_ISSUE links incoming: ACT_INFORM

Action: Creates issue ACT_ISSUE

style: yellow_border links outgoing: USER_B links incoming: USER_A

User: Ms. B USER_B

style: blue_border links outgoing: ACT_ANALYSIS, ACT_SOLUTION links incoming: ACT_ISSUE, ACT_ANALYSIS

Action: Analysis issue ACT_ANALYSIS

style: yellow_border links outgoing: USER_B links incoming: USER_B

Action: Provides solution ACT_SOLUTION

style: yellow_border links outgoing: USER_C links incoming: USER_B

User: Expert C USER_C

style: blue_border links outgoing: ACT_REVIEW, ACT_INFORM links incoming: ACT_SOLUTION, ACT_REVIEW

Action: Reviews solution ACT_REVIEW

style: yellow_border links outgoing: USER_C links incoming: USER_C

Action: Informs reporter ACT_INFORM

style: yellow_border links outgoing: USER_A links incoming: USER_C

User: Office Dog USER_D

style: blue_border triggers: ACT_BARKS triggered by: ACT_BARKS

Action: Barks for support ACT_BARKS

style: yellow_border triggers: USER_D triggered by: USER_D

Sequence diagrams supports special needs-combinations, in which one type represents some kind of an participant and another, linked need is representing the message. Examples for this relationship are: Sender-Receiver communication , Role-Activity processes or Tool-Artifact relations.

needsequence needs at least one start-need, defined by its id in the :start: option. This need is the first participant. The next, linked need(s) is representing the message. Needs linked from a message are interpreted as participant again and so on. So the linking must be really clean to get nice, meaningful sequence diagrams out of it.

The used need-type itself is unimportant.

Participant-Message flow

The above, linked example gets interpreted for needsequence as follows:

Options

start

start takes a comma separated list of need ids, which shall be used as starting point for further examination for sequence data.

First need of start gets painted first. This includes all related messages and other participants.

After that the next need id is taken from start. And if it was not already part of the prior examination, it is handled the same way otherwise it is ignored.

link_types

link_types takes a comma separated list of link type names, which shall be followed during examination. Other link_types get ignored and therefore all participants or messages, which are accessible by the ignored linked type only.

Default: links

filter

The filter string is used to filter participants. All participants must fulfil the filter_string, otherwise they get ignored. See Filter string for more information.

Default: None (no active filtering)

This function can be used to filter out for instance a specific participant. As example, same needsequence from the beginning, but without USER_C / Expert:

.. needsequence:: My filtered sequence chart
   :start: USER_A, USER_D
   :link_types: links, triggers
   :filter: "Expert" not in title

My filtered sequence chart