In this video a part of an UML state chart can be seen :
However, the "provide funds" state is an action. How does that make sense ?
Is it possible for a state to be an action (verb) ?
Should the "provide funds" action not be rather a transition ?
Would something like this below not make more sense ?
This is just poor naming. It should be called "Providing Funds". That would make clear what happens in that state and the fact that it is a state.
Provide Funds in this case is also a state with the same name as an action. So they are not identical. They just have the same name. Sometimes it's hard to avoid this situation. From the modeling perspective I would say this state is simply superfluous. You could do self-transitions from Funds Available while funds are > 0 and simply exit when fund gets zero.
P.S. Oh, I see your last picture is exactly what I said :-)
So basically the [funds avail >$0] transition gets automatically triggered after the Provide Funds action completes?
Yes and no. [funds avail >$0] is a guard. The trigger is request fund. This transition will only be performed if the guard won't block (so if money is available).
So this is some kind of a "transient" state? So to say.
Also, do I get it right that the state while providing funds is also called Provide Funds (not just the the action)? So a better name for the state would be : the state of the machine while providing funds ?
Exactly.
