Associations and Links

• An association defines a type of link and is a general

relationship between classes.
• For example, the project management system involves
various general relationships, including manage, lead,
execute, input, and output between projects, managers,
teams, work products, requirements, and systems.
Binary Associations
• A binary association relates two classes.

• For example, one binary relationship in the project

management system is between individual workers and
their units of work, and another binary relationship is
between individual workers and their work products.
Binary Associations
• The associations in the figure are as follows:
• A worker is responsible for work products and performs units of
work
• Units of work consume work products as input and produce work
products as output.

• Notice that a binary association should be named using a

verb phrase
N-ary associations
• An n-ary association relates three or more classes.
• For example, in the project management system, the use
of a worker involves the worker, her units of work, and her
associated work products.
Association classes
• Association classes may be applied to both binary and n-
ary associations. Similar to how a class defines the
characteristics of its objects, including their structural
features and behavioral features, an association class
may be used to define the characteristics of its links,
including their structural features and behavioral features.
These types of classes are used when you need to
maintain information about the relationship itself.
Binary Association classes
• The association classes track the following information:
• The reason a worker is responsible for a work product
• The reason a worker performs a unit of work
• A description of how a unit of work consumes a work product
• A description of how a unit of work produces a work product.
N-ary Association classes
Association ends
• An association end is an endpoint of the line drawn for an
association, and it connects the association to a class. An
association end may include any of the following items to
express more detail about how the class relates to the
other class or classes in the association:
• Rolename
• Navigation arrow
• Multiplicity specification
• Aggregation or composition symbol
• Qualifier
Assocation ends
Rolename
• A rolename is optional and indicates the role a class plays
relative to the other classes in an association, how the
other classes "see" the class or what "face" the class
projects to the other classes in the relationship. A
rolename is shown near the end of an association
attached to a class.
Navigation
• Navigation is optional and indicates whether a class may
be referenced from the other classes in an association.
• Navigation is shown as an arrow attached to an
association end pointing toward the class in question. If
no arrows are present, associations are assumed to be
navigable in all directions, and all classes involved in the
association may reference one another
Multiplicity
• Multiplicity (which is optional) indicates how many objects of a
class may relate to the other classes in an association.
Multiplicity is shown as a comma-separated sequence of the
following:
• Integer intervals
• Literal integer values
• Intervals are shown as a lower-bound .. upper-bound string in
which a single asterisk indicates an unlimited range.
• No asterisks indicate a closed range. For example, 1 means
one, 1..5 means one to five, 1, 4 means one or four, 0..* and *
mean zero or more (or many), and 0..1 and 0, 1 mean zero or
one. There is no default multiplicity for association ends.
Multiplicity is simply undefined, unless you specify it.
Aggregation
• Aggregation is whole-part relationship between an
aggregate, the whole, and its parts. This relationship is
often known as a has-a relationship, because the whole
has its parts.

• Aggregation is shown using a hollow diamond attached to

the class that represents the whole.
Aggregation
Composition
• Composition, also known as composite aggregation, is a
whole-part relationship between a composite (the whole)
and its parts, in which the parts must belong only to one
whole and the whole is responsible for creating and
destroying its parts when it is created or destroyed.
• It is a ‘contains a’ relationship
Qualifiers
• A qualifier is an attribute of an association class that
reduces the multiplicity across an association.
• Essentially, a qualifier is a piece of information used as an
index to find the objects on the other end of an
association
Qualifiers
Links
• A link is a specific relationship between objects. For
example, the project management system involves
various specific relationships, including specific manage,
lead, execute, input, output, and other relationships
between specific projects, managers, teams, work
products, requirements, systems, and so forth.

• A link is an instance of an association, and the UML

supports different types of links that correspond to the
different types of associations
Links
• The general rules for representing links in a UML diagram
are as follows:
• Label links with their association names, and underline the names
to show that they are specific instances of their respective
associations.
• Ensure that link ends are consistent with their corresponding
association ends.
• Translate association multiplicity into one or more specific links
between specific objects.
Binary Links
• A binary link, which is a specific relationship between two
objects, is shown as a solid-line path connecting the two
objects in a UML object diagram.
N-ary links
• An n-ary link, a relationship between three or more
objects, is shown as a large diamond with solid-line paths
from the diamond to each object in a UML object diagram.
Links objects
• A link object is a specific instance of an association class,
and thus has all the characteristics, including structural
and behavioral features, defined by the association class.

• Read the pages about Links.

Types, Implementation classes and interfaces
• The kinds of classes discussed thus far are known as
undifferentiated classes, and are commonly used during
design activities within a development process.
• You can also differentiate between three different kinds of
classes, called differentiated classes.
• These include:
• Types
• Implementation classes
• Interfaces
Types
• A type is a class that may have attributes, associations,
and operations, but does not have any methods.
• A type defines a role an object may play relative to other
objects, similar to how a rolename indicates the role a
class plays relative to other classes in an association.
Implementation classes
• An implementation class is a class that may have
attributes, associations, operations, and methods. An
implementation class defines the physical implementation
of objects of a class.
Interfaces
• An interface is a class that may have operations but may
not have attributes, associations, or methods.
• An interface defines a service or contract as a collection
of public operations.
Packages and subsystems
• As a model may have hundreds (if not thousands) of
model elements, how do you organize the elements that
make up a system and their relationships?
Packages
• A package is a grouping and organizing element in which
other elements reside, which must be uniquely named. In
the UML, packages are used in a manner similar to the
way directories and folders in an operating system group
and organize files.
Packages
Subsystems
• Recall that a system is an organized collection of
elements that may be recursively decomposed into
smaller subsystems and eventually into
nondecomposable primitive elements.

• The project management system may be decomposed

into the following:
• A user interface subsystem responsible for providing a user
interface through which users may interact with the system
• A business processing subsystem responsible for implementing
business functionality
• A data subsystem responsible for implementing data storage
functionality
Subsystems