UML™ Bible

CHAPTER 14

Using Packages

In This Chapter

• Modeling packages
• Modeling package dependencies
• Modeling subsystems
• Modeling models
• Organizing your packages

Organizing your work is one of the most important things that you do. There are a number of devices presented by UML to help you organize packages, systems, subsystems, and models. This chapter introduces those devices and provides an overview of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) approach to organizing your work.

Modeling Packages

The package is the main construct in UML for grouping model elements. A package provides exactly the same functionality as a folder in Windows. It enables you to organize elements by grouping them and placing them into a container. Packages can contain other packages, so you can create a hierarchy of packages.

Chapter 3 provided a brief introduction to packages, so some of this material may sound familiar. This chapter delves into the specifics of packages and organizing your work.

Namespaces

A package also provides a namespace for classifiers that you place in the package. The word namespace is familiar to C++ programmers. It means that once you place an element of a certain type in a package, its ...