June 2005
Intermediate to advanced
236 pages
6h 27m
English
Content preview from UML 2.0 in a NutshellBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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Chapter 4. Composite Structures
As a system becomes more complex, it is often helpful to decompose it in terms of functionality (see Chapter 7). To realize a piece of functionality, different elements of a system often work together and communicate information. UML 2.0 formalizes the concept of complex relationships between elements into the idea of composite structures. Much of the material in this chapter is new to UML 2.0.
Composite Structures
A structure is a set of interconnected elements that exist at runtime to collectively provide some piece of functionality. For example, you can use a structure to represent the internal makeup of a classifier such as a subsystem (what objects are related to each other, who is communicating with whom, etc.). UML calls such structures internal structures. UML defines several symbols to capture the relationships and communications between elements in an internal structure.
Connectors
Connectors represent communication links between instances of classes participating in an internal structure. They can be runtime instances of associations, or they can represent dynamic communication set up at runtime—for example by being values of local variables. You show a connector as a solid line between two instances. Note that while associations between classes represent a link between any instances of those classes, a connector represents a link between only the two instances specified at each end of the connector (see "Collaborations").
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