Breaks are most commonly used to model exception handling. This sequence diagram example uses a break combination fragment because it treats the balance < amount condition as an exception instead of as an alternative flow. To read this example, we start at the top left corner of the sequence and read down. When the sequence gets to the return value "balance," it checks to see if the balance is less than the amount. If the balance is not less than the amount, the next message sent is the addDebitTransaction message, and the sequence continues as normal.
