UML basics: The class diagram 10/9/10 6:44 PM

UML basics: The class diagram

An introduction to structure diagrams in UML 2

Donald Bell ([email protected]), IT Architect, IBM Corporation

Summary: from The Rational Edge: As the most important example of the new structure diagram type in
UML 2, the class diagram can be used by analysts, business modelers, developers, and testers throughout
the software development lifecycle. This article offers a comprehensive introduction.

Date: 15 Sep 2004

Level: Introductory
Also available in: Korean Vietnamese

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This is the next installment in a series of articles about the

essential diagrams used within the Unified Modeling Language, or
UML. In my previous article on sequence diagrams, I shifted focus
away from the UML 1.4 spec to OMG's Adopted 2.0 Draft
Specification of UML (a.k.a. UML 2). In this article, I will discuss
Structure Diagrams, which is a new diagram category that has
been introduced in UML 2. Because the purpose of this series is to
educate people about the notation elements and their meanings,
this article focuses mainly on the class diagram. The reason for
this will soon become clear. Subsequent articles will cover other
diagrams included in the structure category.

I also want to remind readers that this series is about UML notation elements, and that these articles are
not meant to provide guidance on the best approach for modeling, or how to determine what things should
be modeled in the first place. Instead, the purpose of this article and of the series in general is to help with
a basic understanding of notation elements — their syntax and their meanings. With this knowledge you
should be able to read diagrams and create your own diagrams using the proper notation elements.

This article assumes you have a rudimentary understanding of object-oriented design. For those of you who
need a little assistance with OO concepts, you might try the Sun brief tutorial Object-Oriented Programming
Concepts. Reading the sections "What Is a Class?" and "What Is Inheritance?" should give you enough
understanding to make this article useful. In addition, David Taylor's book, Object-Oriented Technologies:
A Manager's Guide, offers an excellent, high-level explanation of object-oriented design without requiring
an in-depth understanding of computer programming.

The yin and yang of UML 2

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In UML 2 there are two basic categories of diagrams: structure diagrams and behavior diagrams. Every
UML diagram belongs to one these two diagram categories. The purpose of structure diagrams is to show
the static structure of the system being modeled. They include the class, component, and or object diagrams.
Behavioral diagrams, on the other hand, show the dynamic behavior between the objects in the system,
including things like their methods, collaborations, and activities. Example behavior diagrams are activity,
use case, and sequence diagrams.

Structure diagrams in general

As I have said, structure diagrams show the static structure of the system being modeled. focusing on the
elements of a system, irrespective of time. Static structure is conveyed by showing the types and their
instances in the system. Besides showing system types and their instances, structure diagrams also show at
least some of the relationships among and between these elements and potentially even show their internal
structure.

Structure diagrams are useful throughout the software lifecycle for a variety of team members. In general,
these diagrams allow for design validation and design communication between individuals and teams. For
example, business analysts can use class or object diagrams to model a business's current assets and
resources, such as account ledgers, products, or geographic hierarchy. Architects can use the component and
deployment diagrams to test/verify that their design is sound. Developers can use class diagrams to design
and document the system's coded (or soon-to-be-coded) classes.

The class diagram in particular

UML 2 considers structure diagrams as a classification; there is no diagram itself called a "Structure
Diagram." However, the class diagram offers a prime example of the structure diagram type, and provides
us with an initial set of notation elements that all other structure diagrams use. And because the class
diagram is so foundational, the remainder of this article will focus on the class diagram's notation set. By the
end of this article you should have an understanding of how to draw a UML 2 class diagram and have a
solid footing for understanding other structure diagrams when we cover them in later articles.

The basics

As mentioned earlier, the purpose of the class diagram is to show the types being modeled within the
system. In most UML models these types include:

a class

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an interface
a data type
a component.

UML uses a special name for these types: "classifiers." Generally, you can think of a classifier as a class,
but technically a classifier is a more general term that refers to the other three types above as well.

Class name

The UML representation of a class is a rectangle containing three compartments stacked vertically, as shown
in Figure 1. The top compartment shows the class's name. The middle compartment lists the class's
attributes. The bottom compartment lists the class's operations. When drawing a class element on a class
diagram, you must use the top compartment, and the bottom two compartments are optional. (The bottom
two would be unnecessary on a diagram depicting a higher level of detail in which the purpose is to show
only the relationship between the classifiers.) Figure 1 shows an airline flight modeled as a UML class. As
we can see, the name is Flight, and in the middle compartment we see that the Flight class has three
attributes: flightNumber, departureTime, and flightDuration. In the bottom compartment we see that the
Flight class has two operations: delayFlight and getArrivalTime.

Figure 1: Class diagram for the class Flight

Class attribute list

The attribute section of a class (the middle compartment) lists each of the class's attributes on a separate
line. The attribute section is optional, but when used it contains each attribute of the class displayed in a list
format. The line uses the following format:

name : attribute type

flightNumber : Integer

Continuing with our Flight class example, we can describe the class's attributes with the attribute type
information, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: The Flight class's attribute names with their associated types

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Attribute Name Attribute Type

flightNumber Integer
departureTime Date
flightDuration Minutes

In business class diagrams, the attribute types usually correspond to units that make sense to the likely
readers of the diagram (i.e., minutes, dollars, etc.). However, a class diagram that will be used to generate
code needs classes whose attribute types are limited to the types provided by the programming language, or
types included in the model that will also be implemented in the system.

Sometimes it is useful to show on a class diagram that a particular attribute has a default value. (For
example, in a banking account application a new bank account would start off with a zero balance.) The
UML specification allows for the identification of default values in the attribute list section by using the
following notation:

name : attribute type = default value

For example:

balance : Dollars = 0

Showing a default value for attributes is optional; Figure 2 shows a Bank Account class with an attribute
called balance, which has a default value of 0.

Figure 2: A Bank Account class diagram showing the balance attribute's value defaulted to zero
dollars

Class operations list

The class's operations are documented in the third (lowest) compartment of the class diagram's rectangle,
which again is optional. Like the attributes, the operations of a class are displayed in a list format, with each
operation on its own line. Operations are documented using the following notation:

name(parameter list) : type of value returned

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The Flight class's operations are mapped in Table 2 below.

Table 2: Flight class's operations mapped from Figure 3

Operation Name Parameters Return Value Type
Name Type
delayFlight N/A
numberOfMinutes Minutes
getArrivalTime N/A Date

Figure 3 shows that the delayFlight operation has one input parameter — numberOfMinutes — of the type
Minutes. However, the delayFlight operation does not have a return value. [Note: The delayFlight does not
have a return value because I made a design decision not to have one. One could argue that the delay
operation should return the new arrival time, and if this were the case, the operation signature would appear
as delayFlight(numberOfMinutes : Minutes) : Date.] When an operation has parameters, they are
put inside the operation's parentheses; each parameter uses the format "parameter name : parameter type".

Figure 3: The Flight class operations parameters include the optional "in" marking

When documenting an operation's parameters, you may use an optional indicator to show whether or not the
parameter is input to, or output from, the operation. This optional indicator appears as an "in" or "out" as
shown in the operations compartment in Figure 3. Typically, these indicators are unnecessary unless an
older programming language such as Fortran will be used, in which case this information can be helpful.
However, in C++ and Java, all parameters are "in" parameters and since "in" is the parameter's default type
according to the UML specification, most people will leave out the input/output indicators.

Inheritance

A very important concept in object-oriented design, inheritance, refers to the ability of one class (child
class) to inherit the identical functionality of another class (super class), and then add new functionality of
its own. (In a very non-technical sense, imagine that I inherited my mother's general musical abilities, but in
my family I'm the only one who plays electric guitar.) To model inheritance on a class diagram, a solid line
is drawn from the child class (the class inheriting the behavior) with a closed, unfilled arrowhead (or
triangle) pointing to the super class. Consider types of bank accounts: Figure 4 shows how both
CheckingAccount and SavingsAccount classes inherit from the BankAccount class.

Figure 4: Inheritance is indicated by a solid line with a closed, unfilled arrowhead pointing at the
super class

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In Figure 4, the inheritance relationship is drawn with separate lines for each subclass, which is the method
used in IBM Rational Rose and IBM Rational XDE. However, there is an alternative way to draw
inheritance called tree notation. You can use tree notation when there are two or more child classes, as in
Figure 4, except that the inheritance lines merge together like a tree branch. Figure 5 is a redrawing of the
same inheritance shown in Figure 4, but this time using tree notation.

Figure 5: An example of inheritance using tree notation

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Abstract classes and operations

The observant reader will notice that the diagrams in Figures 4 and 5 use italicized text for the BankAccount
class name and withdrawal operation. This indicates that the BankAccount class is an abstract class and the
withdrawal method is an abstract operation. In other words, the BankAccount class provides the abstract
operation signature of withdrawal and the two child classes of CheckingAccount and SavingsAccount each
implement their own version of that operation.

However, super classes (parent classes) do not have to be abstract classes. It is normal for a standard class
to be a super class.

Associations

When you model a system, certain objects will be related to each other, and these relationships themselves
need to be modeled for clarity. There are five types of associations. I will discuss two of them — bi-
directional and uni-directional associations — in this section, and I will discuss the remaining three
association types in the Beyond the basics section. Please note that a detailed discussion of when to use each
type of association is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, I will focus on the purpose of each
association type and show how the association is drawn on a class diagram.

Bi-directional (standard) association

An association is a linkage between two classes. Associations are always assumed to be bi-directional; this
means that both classes are aware of each other and their relationship, unless you qualify the association as
some other type. Going back to our Flight example, Figure 6 shows a standard kind of association between
the Flight class and the Plane class.

Figure 6: An example of a bi-directional association between a Flight class and a Plane class

A bi-directional association is indicated by a solid line between the two classes. At either end of the line,
you place a role name and a multiplicity value. Figure 6 shows that the Flight is associated with a specific
Plane, and the Flight class knows about this association. The Plane takes on the role of "assignedPlane" in
this association because the role name next to the Plane class says so. The multiplicity value next to the
Plane class of 0..1 means that when an instance of a Flight exists, it can either have one instance of a Plane
associated with it or no Planes associated with it (i.e., maybe a plane has not yet been assigned). Figure 6
also shows that a Plane knows about its association with the Flight class. In this association, the Flight takes
on the role of "assignedFlights"; the diagram in Figure 6 tells us that the Plane instance can be associated
either with no flights (e.g., it's a brand new plane) or with up to an infinite number of flights (e.g., the plane
has been in commission for the last five years).

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For those wondering what the potential multiplicity values are for the ends of associations, Table 3 below
lists some example multiplicity values along with their meanings.

Table 3: Multiplicity values and their indicators

Potential Multiplicity Values
Indicator Meaning
0..1 Zero or one
1 One only
0..* Zero or more
* Zero or more
1..* One or more
3 Three only
0..5 Zero to Five
5..15 Five to Fifteen

Uni-directional association

In a uni-directional association, two classes are related, but only one class knows that the relationship exists.
Figure 7 shows an example of an overdrawn accounts report with a uni-directional association.

Figure 7: An example of a uni-directional association: The OverdrawnAccountsReport class knows

about the BankAccount class, but the BankAccount class does not know about the association

A uni-directional association is drawn as a solid line with an open arrowhead (not the closed arrowhead, or
triangle, used to indicate inheritance) pointing to the known class. Like standard associations, the uni-
directional association includes a role name and a multiplicity value, but unlike the standard bi-directional
association, the uni-directional association only contains the role name and multiplicity value for the known
class. In our example in Figure 7, the OverdrawnAccountsReport knows about the BankAccount class, and
the BankAccount class plays the role of "overdrawnAccounts." However, unlike a standard association, the
BankAccount class has no idea that it is associated with the OverdrawnAccountsReport. [Note: It may seem
strange that the BankAccount class does not know about the OverdrawnAccountsReport class. This
modeling allows report classes to know about the business class they report, but the business classes do not
know they are being reported on. This loosens the coupling of the objects and therefore makes the system
more adaptive to changes.]

Packages

Inevitably, if you are modeling a large system or a large area of a business, there will be many different
classifiers in your model. Managing all the classes can be a daunting task; therefore, UML provides an

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organizing element called a package. Packages enable modelers to organize the model's classifiers into
namespaces, which is sort of like folders in a filing system. Dividing a system into multiple packages makes
the system easier to understand, especially if each package represents a specific part of the system. [Note:
Packages are great for organizing your model's classes, but it's important to remember that your class
diagrams are supposed to easily communicate information about the system being modeled. In cases where
your packages have lots of classes, it is better to use multiple topic-specific class diagrams instead of just
producing one large class diagram.]

There are two ways of drawing packages on diagrams. There is no rule for determining which notation to
use, except to use your personal judgement regarding which is easiest to read for the class diagram you are
drawing. Both ways begin with a large rectangle with a smaller rectangle (tab) above its upper left corner,
as seen in Figure 8. But the modeler must decide how the package's membership is to be shown, as follows:

If the modeler decides to show the package's members within the large rectangle, then all those
members need to be placed within the rectangle. [Note: It's important to understand that when I say
"all those members," I mean only the classes that the current diagram is going to show. A diagram
showing a package with contents does not need to show all its contents; it can show a subset of the
contained elements according to some criterion, which is not necessarily all the package's classifiers.]
Also the package's name needs to be placed in the package's smaller rectangle (as show n in Figure 8).
If the modeler decides to show the package's members outside the large rectangle then all the
members that will be shown on the diagram need to be placed outside the rectangle. To show what
classifiers belong to the package, a line is drawn from each classifier to a circle that has a plus sign
inside the circle attached to the package (Figure 9).

Figure 8: An example package element that shows its members inside the package's rectangle
boundaries

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Figure 9: An example package element showing its membership via connected lines

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Importance of understanding the basics

It is more important than ever in UML 2 to understand the basics of the class diagram. This is because the
class diagram provides the basic building blocks for all other structure diagrams, such as the component or
object diagrams (just to name a few).

Beyond the basics

At this point, I have covered the basics of the class diagram, but do not stop reading yet! In the following
sections, I will address more important aspects of the class diagram that you can put to good use. These
include interfaces, the three remaining types of associations, visibility, and other additions in the UML 2

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specification.

Interfaces

Earlier in this article, I suggested that you think of classifiers simply as classes. In fact, a classifier is a more
general concept, which includes data types and interfaces.

A complete discussion of when and how to use data types and interfaces effectively in a system's structure
diagrams is beyond the scope of this article. So why do I mention data types and interfaces here? There are
times when you might want to model these classifier types on a structure diagram, and it is important to use
the proper notation in doing so, or at least be aware of these classifier types. Drawing these classifiers
incorrectly will likely confuse readers of your structure diagram, and the ensuing system will probably not
meet requirements.

A class and an interface differ: A class can have an actual instance of its type, whereas an interface must
have at least one class to implement it. In UML 2, an interface is considered to be a specialization of a class
modeling element. Therefore, an interface is drawn just like a class, but the top compartment of the
rectangle also has the text "«interface»", as shown in Figure 10. [Note: When drawing a class diagram it is
completely within UML specification to put «class» in the top compartment of the rectangle, as you would
with «interface»; however, the UML specification says that placing the "class" text in this compartment is
optional, and it should be assumed if «class» is not displayed.]

Figure 10: Example of a class diagram in which the Professor and Student classes implement the
Person interface

In the diagram shown in Figure 10, both the Professor and Student classes implement the Person interface
and do not inherit from it. We know this for two reasons: 1) The Person object is defined as an interface —
it has the "«interface»" text in the object's name area, and we see that the Professor and Student objects are
class objects because they are labeled according to the rules for drawing a class object (there is no
additional classification text in their name area). 2) We know inheritance is not being shown here, because
the line with the arrow is dotted and not solid. As shown in Figure 10, a dotted line with a closed, unfilled
arrow means realization (or implementation); as we saw in Figure 4, a solid arrow line with a closed,

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unfilled arrow means inheritance.

More associations

Above, I discussed bi-directional and uni-directional associations. Now I will address the three remaining
types of associations.

Association class

In modeling an association, there are times when you need to include another class because it includes
valuable information about the relationship. For this you would use an association class that you tie to the
primary association. An association class is represented like a normal class. The difference is that the
association line between the primary classes intersects a dotted line connected to the association class.
Figure 11 shows an association class for our airline industry example.

Figure 11: Adding the association class MileageCredit

In the class diagram shown in Figure 11, the association between the Flight class and the FrequentFlyer
class results in an association class called MileageCredit. This means that when an instance of a Flight class
is associated with an instance of a FrequentFlyer class, there will also be an instance of a MileageCredit
class.

Aggregation

Aggregation is a special type of association used to model a "whole to its parts" relationship. In basic
aggregation relationships, the lifecycle of a part class is independent from the whole class's lifecycle.

For example, we can think of Car as a whole entity and Car Wheel as part of the overall Car. The wheel
can be created weeks ahead of time, and it can sit in a warehouse before being placed on a car during
assembly. In this example, the Wheel class's instance clearly lives independently of the Car class's instance.
However, there are times when the part class's lifecycle is not independent from that of the whole class —
this is called composition aggregation. Consider, for example, the relationship of a company to its
departments. Both Company and Departments are modeled as classes, and a department cannot exist before
a company exists. Here the Department class's instance is dependent upon the existence of the Company
class's instance.

Let's explore basic aggregation and composition aggregation further.

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Basic aggregation
An association with an aggregation relationship indicates that one class is a part of another class. In an
aggregation relationship, the child class instance can outlive its parent class. To represent an aggregation
relationship, you draw a solid line from the parent class to the part class, and draw an unfilled diamond
shape on the parent class's association end. Figure 12 shows an example of an aggregation relationship
between a Car and a Wheel.

Figure 12: Example of an aggregation association

Composition aggregation
The composition aggregation relationship is just another form of the aggregation relationship, but the child
class's instance lifecycle is dependent on the parent class's instance lifecycle. In Figure 13, which shows a
composition relationship between a Company class and a Department class, notice that the composition
relationship is drawn like the aggregation relationship, but this time the diamond shape is filled.

Figure 13: Example of a composition relationship

In the relationship modeled in Figure 13, a Company class instance will always have at least one
Department class instance. Because the relationship is a composition relationship, when the Company
instance is removed/destroyed, the Department instance is automatically removed/destroyed as well.
Another important feature of composition aggregation is that the part class can only be related to one
instance of the parent class (e.g. the Company class in our example).

Reflexive associations

We have now discussed all the association types. As you may have noticed, all our examples have shown a
relationship between two different classes. However, a class can also be associated with itself, using a
reflexive association. This may not make sense at first, but remember that classes are abstractions. Figure 14
shows how an Employee class could be related to itself through the manager/manages role. When a class is
associated to itself, this does not mean that a class's instance is related to itself, but that an instance of the
class is related to another instance of the class.

Figure 14: Example of a reflexive association relationship

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The relationship drawn in Figure 14 means that an instance of Employee can be the manager of another
Employee instance. However, because the relationship role of "manages" has a multiplicity of 0..*; an
Employee might not have any other Employees to manage.

Visibility

In object-oriented design, there is a notation of visibility for attributes and operations. UML identifies four
types of visibility: public, protected, private, and package.

The UML specification does not require attributes and operations visibility to be displayed on the class
diagram, but it does require that it be defined for each attribute or operation. To display visibility on the
class diagram, you place the visibility mark in front of the attribute's or operation's name. Though UML
specifies four visibility types, an actual programming language may add additional visibilities, or it may not
support the UML-defined visibilities. Table 4 displays the different marks for the UML-supported visibility
types.

Table 4: Marks for UML-supported visibility types

Mark Visibility type
+ Public
# Protected
- Private
~ Package

Now, let's look at a class that shows the visibility types indicated for its attributes and operations. In Figure
15, all the attributes and operations are public, with the exception of the updateBalance operation. The
updateBalance operation is protected.

Figure 15: A BankAccount class that shows the visibility of its attributes and operations

UML 2 additions

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Now that we have covered the basics and the advanced topics, we will cover some of the new notations
added to the class diagram from UML 1.x.

Instances

When modeling a system's structure it is sometimes useful to show example instances of the classes. To
model this, UML 2 provides the instance specification element, which shows interesting information using
example (or real) instances in the system.

The notation of an instance is the same as a class, but instead of the top compartment merely having the
class's name, the name is an underlined concatenation of:

Instance Name : Class Name

For example:

Donald : Person

Because the purpose of showing instances is to show interesting or relevant information, it is not necessary
to include in your model the entire instance's attributes and operations. Instead it is completely appropriate
to show only the attributes and their values that are interesting as depicted in Figure 16.

Figure 16: An example instance of a Plane class (only the interesting attribute values are shown)

However, merely showing some instances without their relationship is not very useful; therefore, UML 2
allows for the modeling of the relationships/associations at the instance level as well. The rules for drawing
associations are the same as for normal class relationships, although there is one additional requirement
when modeling the associations. The additional restriction is that association relationships must match the
class diagram's relationships and therefore the association's role names must also match the class diagram.
An example of this is shown in Figure 17. In this example the instances are example instances of the class
diagram found in Figure 6.

Figure 17: An example of Figure 6 using instances instead of classes

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Figure 17 has two instances of the Flight class because the class diagram indicated that the relationship
between the Plane class and the Flight class is zero-to-many. Therefore, our example shows the two Flight
instances that the NX0337 Plane instance is related to.

Roles

Modeling the instances of classes is sometimes more detailed than one might wish. Sometimes, you may
simply want to model a class's relationship at a more generic level. In such cases, you should use the role
notation. The role notation is very similar to the instances notation. To model a class's role, you draw a box
and place the class's role name and class name inside as with the instances notation, but in this case you do
not underline the words. Figure 18 shows an example of the roles played by the Employee class described
by the diagram at Figure 14. In Figure 18, we can tell, even though the Employee class is related to itself,
that the relationship is really between an Employee playing the role of manager and an Employee playing
the role of team member.

Figure 18: A class diagram showing the class in Figure 14 in its different roles

Note that you cannot model a class's role on a plain class diagram, even though Figure 18 makes it appear
that you can. In order to use the role notation you will need to use the Internal Structure notation, discussed
next.

Internal Structures

One of the more useful features of UML 2 structure diagrams is the new internal structure notation. It allows
you to show how a class or another classifier is internally composed. This was not possible in UML 1.x,
because the notation set limited you to showing only the aggregation relationships that a class had. Now, in
UML 2, the internal structure notation lets you more clearly show how that class's parts relate to each other.

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Let's look at an example. In Figure 18 we have a class diagram showing how a Plane class is composed of
four engines and two control software objects. What is missing from this diagram is any information about
how airplane parts are assembled. From the diagram in Figure 18, you cannot tell if the control software
objects control two engines each, or if one control software object controls three engines and the other
controls one engine.

Figure 19: A class diagram that only shows relationships between the objects

Drawing a class's internal structure will improve this situation. You start by drawing a box with two
compartments. The top compartment contains the class name, and the lower compartment contains the
class's internal structure, showing the parent class's part classes in their respective roles, as well as how each
particular class relates to others in that role. Figure 19 shows the internal structure of Plane class; notice
how the internal structure clears up the confusion.

Figure 20: An example internal structure of a Plane class

In Figure 20 the Plane has two ControlSoftware objects and each one controls two engines. The
ControlSoftware on the left side of the diagram (control1) controls engines 1 and 2. The ControlSoftware on
the right side of the diagram (control2) controls engines 3 and 4.

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Conclusion

There are at least two important reasons for understanding the class diagram. The first is that it shows the
static structure of classifiers in a system; the second reason is that the diagram provides the basic notation
for other structure diagrams prescribed by UML. Developers will think the class diagram was created
specially for them; but other team members will find them useful, too. Business analysts can use class
diagrams to model systems from the business perspective. As we will see in other articles in this series on
UML basics, other diagrams — including the activity, sequence, and statechart diagrams — refer to the
classes modeled and documented on the class diagram.

Next in this series on UML basics: The component diagram.

Resources

Learn

Understand more about how the new functionality of the UML Modeler component common to both
IBM Rational Software Architect Standard Edition Version 7.5 and IBM Rational Software Architect
for WebSphere Software Version 7.5 by reading this article Using the new features of UML Modeler
in IBM Rational Software Architect Version 7.5.

Understand more about the new functionality of Rational Software Architect for WebSphere Software
Version 7.5 by reading this article Overview of Rational Software Architect for WebSphere Software
Version 7.5.

Learn about Rational Tau.

Learn about other applications in the IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform, including
collaboration tools for parallel development and geographically dispersed teams, plus specialized
software for architecture management, asset management, change and release management, integrated
requirements management, process and portfolio management, and quality management. You can find
product manuals, installation guides, and other documentation in the IBM Rational Online
Documentation Center.

Visit the Rational software area on developerWorks for technical resources and best practices for
Rational Software Delivery Platform products.

Explore Rational computer-based, Web-based, and instructor-led online courses. Hone your skills and
learn more about Rational tools with these courses, which range from introductory to advanced. The
courses on this catalog are available for purchase through computer-based training or Web-based
training. Some of the "Getting Started" courses are available free of charge.

Subscribe to the IBM developerWorks newsletter, a weekly update on the best of developerWorks
tutorials, articles, downloads, community activities, webcasts and events.

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UML basics: The class diagram 10/9/10 6:44 PM

Browse the technology bookstore for books on these and other technical topics.

Get products and technologies

Download a trial version of Rational Software Modeler.

Download a trial version of Rational Software Architect standard edition.

Download Rational Software Architect for Websphere Software.

Download Other IBM product evaluation versions and get your hands on application development
tools and middleware products from DB2®, Lotus®, Rational®, Tivoli®, and WebSphere®.

Discuss

Check out developerWorks blogs and get involved in the developerWorks community.

Join the Development Tools forum on developerWorks to discuss Rational Application Developer,
Rational Software Architect, and Rational Software Modeler.

Join the Rational Tau forum on developerWorks.

About the author

Donald Bell is an IT architect for IBM Rational software, where he works with clients to define and adopt
effective software delivery practices and tools.

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