How to show asynchronous operations on UML Activit

Question

I am about to draw/document for some client-server connection establishing code to better understand it. There are several operations that are done asynchronously in separate threads (connecting threads, data receiving threads, etc).

Should I show them on separate diagrams? I would prefer to have it on a single diagram to grasp overall view but don't know how to represent it on Activity diagram.

Answer 1

I'm not sure if there's a correct way of doing this, I developed my own method by testing different strategies until I came up with something that worked for my own mindset.

This is how I do it:

• Threads == Swimlanes
• Thread Operations == Action/Activity nodes
• Critical sections == Object nodes
• Thread creation == Fork nodes

An example image below.

alt text http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/55eaa90498.jpg

Answer 2

Instead of using full arrowheads you can use half arrowheads to show an asynchronous message call. As shown