how to represent “sub-sequences” in uml sequence diagrams?

Question

In activity diagrams, you can have a top level activity diagram that contains a sub-activity diagram. This is useful where the sub-activity contains lots of details that you don't want to show in the top level activity diagram.

Is a similar concept available for sequence diagrams?

Basically, I have a sequence diagram where I want to hide some of the details in the diagram by moving those details to another sequence diagram.

Answer 1

This can be achieved by using a <<ref>> fragment in your sequence diagram, that references a sub sequence diagram.

See for example this picture : http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/content/RationalEdge/feb04/3101_figure11.jpg where Balance Lookup and Debit Account are references to other sequence diageams that may in turn contain plenty of lifelines and calls.

Answer 2

嗯，看来解决方案可能是使用交互概述图 。