n-ary association
An association among three or more classes. Contrast: binary association.
Semantics
Each instance of the association is an n-tuple of values, one from each of the respective classes. A single class may appear in more than one position in the association, but the values in the different positions are independent and need not be the same object. A binary association is a special case with its own simpler notation and certain additional properties that are meaningless (or at least hopelessly complicated) for an n-ary association.
Multiplicity for n-ary associations may be specified but is less obvious than binary multiplicity. The multiplicity on an association end represents the potential number of values at the end, when the ...
Get Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual, The, Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
