An efficient version model of software diagrams

Various types of diagrams are used to represent the design of software systems. During the design phase, versions of a diagram may be created like other design documents and source code, and it is necessary to manage them efficiently. However, traditional configuration management systems and some object-oriented database management systems that provide object versioning are not suitable for managing versions of a diagram. In this paper, we propose an efficient version model of software diagrams. This model reflects the common characteristics and structure of software diagrams, and revisions of a diagram are managed by operation delta and object visibility. A merge model for versions of a diagram is also presented at the end of this paper.