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Diagrams

Diagrams help to communicate complex relationships and interconnections between different technical components, and are a great addition to project documentation. Material for MkDocs integrates with Mermaid.js, a very popular and flexible solution for drawing diagrams.

Usage

Using flowcharts

Flowcharts are diagrams that represent workflows or processes. The steps are rendered as nodes of various kinds and are connected by edges, describing the necessary order of steps:

Flow chart
``` mermaid
graph LR
  A[Start] --> B{Error?};
  B -->|Yes| C[Hmm...];
  C --> D[Debug];
  D --> B;
  B ---->|No| E[Yay!];
```

graph LR
  A[Start] --> B{Error?};
  B -->|Yes| C[Hmm...];
  C --> D[Debug];
  D --> B;
  B ---->|No| E[Yay!];

Using sequence diagrams

Sequence diagrams describe a specific scenario as sequential interactions between multiple objects or actors, including the messages that are exchanged between those actors:

Sequence diagram
``` mermaid
sequenceDiagram
  Alice->>John: Hello John, how are you?
  loop Healthcheck
      John->>John: Fight against hypochondria
  end
  Note right of John: Rational thoughts!
  John-->>Alice: Great!
  John->>Bob: How about you?
  Bob-->>John: Jolly good!
```

sequenceDiagram
  Alice->>John: Hello John, how are you?
  loop Healthcheck
      John->>John: Fight against hypochondria
  end
  Note right of John: Rational thoughts!
  John-->>Alice: Great!
  John->>Bob: How about you?
  Bob-->>John: Jolly good!

Using state diagrams

State diagrams are a great tool to describe the behavior of a system, decomposing it into a finite number of states, and transitions between those states:

State diagram
``` mermaid
stateDiagram-v2
  state fork_state <<fork>>
    [*] --> fork_state
    fork_state --> State2
    fork_state --> State3

    state join_state <<join>>
    State2 --> join_state
    State3 --> join_state
    join_state --> State4
    State4 --> [*]
```

stateDiagram-v2
  state fork_state <<fork>>
    [*] --> fork_state
    fork_state --> State2
    fork_state --> State3

    state join_state <<join>>
    State2 --> join_state
    State3 --> join_state
    join_state --> State4
    State4 --> [*]

Using class diagrams

Class diagrams are central to object oriented programing, describing the structure of a system by modelling entities as classes and relationships between them:

Class diagram
``` mermaid
classDiagram
  Person <|-- Student
  Person <|-- Professor
  Person : +String name
  Person : +String phoneNumber
  Person : +String emailAddress
  Person: +purchaseParkingPass()
  Address "1" <-- "0..1" Person:lives at
  class Student{
    +int studentNumber
    +int averageMark
    +isEligibleToEnrol()
    +getSeminarsTaken()
  }
  class Professor{
    +int salary
  }
  class Address{
    +String street
    +String city
    +String state
    +int postalCode
    +String country
    -validate()
    +outputAsLabel()  
  }
```

classDiagram
  Person <|-- Student
  Person <|-- Professor
  Person : +String name
  Person : +String phoneNumber
  Person : +String emailAddress
  Person: +purchaseParkingPass()
  Address "1" <-- "0..1" Person:lives at
  class Student{
    +int studentNumber
    +int averageMark
    +isEligibleToEnrol()
    +getSeminarsTaken()
  }
  class Professor{
    +int salary
  }
  class Address{
    +String street
    +String city
    +String state
    +int postalCode
    +String country
    -validate()
    +outputAsLabel()  
  }

Using entity-relationship diagrams

An entity-relationship diagram is composed of entity types and specifies relationships that exist between entities. It describes inter-related things in a specific domain of knowledge:

Entity-relationship diagram
``` mermaid
erDiagram
  CUSTOMER ||--o{ ORDER : places
  ORDER ||--|{ LINE-ITEM : contains
  CUSTOMER }|..|{ DELIVERY-ADDRESS : uses
```

erDiagram
  CUSTOMER ||--o{ ORDER : places
  ORDER ||--|{ LINE-ITEM : contains
  CUSTOMER }|..|{ DELIVERY-ADDRESS : uses

Other diagram types

Besides the diagram types listed above, Mermaid.js provides support for pie charts, gantt charts, user journeys, git graphs and requirement diagrams, all of which are not officially supported by Material for MkDocs. Those diagrams should still work as advertised by Mermaid.js, but we don't consider them a good choice, mostly as they don't work well on mobile.

Last update: 2022-05-13
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