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Entity Life-Cycle Diagram

The purpose of an Entity Life-Cycle Diagram, sometimes named the Entity State Transition Diagram, is to depict entity states and the possible state changes for entities of a single type.

When using CA Gen, you have defined a life-cycle partitioning that includes entity subtypes for each of the discrete states in the life-cycle. CA Gen uses the "fence post" style of diagram as shown in the following illustration.

Entity Life-Cycle Diagram

This diagram uses the following symbols:

The Entity Relationship Diagram fragment in the following illustration presents a complex life-cycle partitioning of the entity type Order with two life-cycle partitionings and nine discrete entity states.

Entity Life-Cycle Diagram (2)

The entity life-cycle depicts the life-cycle by showing the possible movement of an entity between states. Consider the following illustration of the entity life-cycle for the entity type Order.

Entity Life-Cycle Diagram (3)

Each state in this illustration corresponds to a subtype in the life-cycle partitioning that is depicted in the previous illustration of the life-cycle partitioning of the entity type Order.

Vertical brackets group together the states that are common to a life-cycle partitioning. All the names appearing on the vertical arrows are those of elementary processes in the Activity Hierarchy Diagram.

Notes: