Another view on UML Diagrams

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 Use case

• What is a Use Case

▪ A formal way of representing how a business
system interacts with its environment
▪ Illustrates the activities that are performed by the
users of the system
▪ A scenario-based technique in the UML
▪ A sequence of actions a system performs that yields a
valuable result for a particular actor.

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UML Use Case Diagrams
Used during requirements elicitation
and analysis to represent external
behavior (“visible from the outside of
the system”)
An Actor represents a role, that is, a type
of user of the system
Passenger
A use case represents a class of
functionality provided by the
system
Use case model:
The set of all use cases that
PurchaseTicket completely describe the
functionality of the system.

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Actors
• An actor is a model for an external entity which
interacts (communicates) with the system:
• User
• External system (Another system)
• Physical environment (e.g. Weather)
• An actor has a unique name and an optional
Passenger description
• Examples: Optional
Description
• Passenger: A person in the train
• GPS satellite: An external system that provides the
system with GPS coordinates.
Name

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 Use Case
• A use case represents a class of functionality
provided by the system
• Use cases can be described textually, with a
focus on the event flow between actor and
system
• The textual use case description consists of 6
PurchaseTicket parts:
1. Unique name
2. Participating actors
3. Entry conditions
4. Exit conditions
5. Flow of events
6. Special requirements.

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Textual Use Case
Description Example Passenger
PurchaseTicket

1. Name: Purchase ticket 5. Flow of events:

1. Passenger selects the number of
2. Participating actor: Passenger zones to be traveled
2. Ticket Distributor displays the
3. Entry condition: amount due
• Passenger stands in front of 3. Passenger inserts money, at
ticket distributor least the amount due
• Passenger has sufficient money 4. Ticket Distributor returns change
to purchase ticket 5. Ticket Distributor issues ticket
6. Special requirements: None.
4. Exit condition:
• Passenger has ticket

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 Uses Cases can be related

• Extends Relationship
• To represent seldom invoked use cases or exceptional functionality
• Includes Relationship
• To represent functional behavior common to more than one use case.
• Communicates (association)
• The behavioral relationship communicates is used to connect an actor
to a use case.
• Generalizes.
• The generalizes relationship implies that one thing is more typical
than the other thing.

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Use Case Relationships

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Includes

• An Includes relationship is used to indicate that a particular Use

Case must include another use case to perform its function.

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Extends

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 The <<extends>> Relationship
• <<extends>> relationships model
exceptional or seldom invoked cases
• The exceptional event flows are
factored out of the main event flow for
Passenger clarity
• The direction of an <<extends>>
relationship is to the extended use case
• Use cases representing exceptional
PurchaseTicket flows can extend more than one use
case.
<<extends>>

<<extends>>
<<extends>>
OutOfOrder <<extends>> TimeOut

Cancel NoChange
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 The <<includes>> Relationship
• <<includes>> relationship
represents common
functionality needed in more
Passenger
than one use case
• <<includes>> behavior is
PurchaseMultiCard
factored out for reuse, not
PurchaseSingleTicket because it is an exception
<<includes>>
<<includes>>
• The direction of a
<<includes>> relationship is
to the using use case (unlike
CollectMoney <<extends>> the direction of the
<<extends>>
<<extends>> <<extends>> relationship).

NoChange Cancel Cancel

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 Class Diagrams

• Class diagrams represent the structure of the system

• Used
• during requirements analysis to model application domain concepts
• during system design to model subsystems
• during object design to specify the detailed behavior and attributes of
classes.

TarifSchedule Trip
Table zone2price
zone:Zone
Enumeration getZones()
Price getPrice(Zone)
* * Price: Price

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Classes Type
TarifSchedule
Table zone2price
Enumeration getZones()
Name Price getPrice(Zone)

TarifSchedule
zone2price Attributes Signature
getZones()
getPrice()
Operations TarifSchedule

• A class represents a concept

• A class encapsulates state (attributes) and behavior (operations)

Each attribute has a type

Each operation has a signature

The class name is the only mandatory information

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 Actor vs Class vs Object
• Actor
• An entity outside the system to be modeled, interacting
with the system (“Passenger”)
• Class
• An abstraction modeling an entity in the application or
solution domain
• The class is part of the system model (“User”, “Ticket
distributor”, “Server”)
• Object
• A specific instance of a class (“Joe, the passenger who
is purchasing a ticket from the ticket distributor”).
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Associations

TarifSchedule TripLeg

Enumeration getZones() Price

Price getPrice(Zone)
* * Zone

Associations denote relationships between classes

The multiplicity of an association end denotes

how many objects the instance of a class can
legitimately reference.
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1-to-1 and 1-to-many Associations

Country 1 1 City

name:String name:String

1-to-1 association

Point
Polygon
* x: Integer

y: Integer
draw()

1-to-many association

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 Many-to-Many Associations

Company

StockExchange * * tickerSymbol

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From Problem Statement To Object Model

Problem Statement: A stock exchange lists many

companies. Each company is uniquely identified
by a ticker symbol

Class Diagram:

StockExchange * * Company
Lists
tickerSymbol

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 From Problem Statement to Code
Problem Statement : A stock exchange lists many companies.
Each company is identified by a ticker symbol

Class Diagram:
StockExchange * * Company
Lists tickerSymbol

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 Aggregation
• An aggregation is a special case
of association denoting a Exhaust system
“consists-of” hierarchy
• The aggregate is the parent class, 1 0..2
the components are the children Muffler Tailpipe
classes diameter diameter

A solid diamond denotes composition: A strong form of

aggregation where the life time of the component instances is
controlled by the aggregate. That is, the parts don’t exist on
their won (“the whole controls/destroys the parts”)
TicketMachine

3
ZoneButton
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Qualifiers
Without qualification
1 * File
Directory
filename

With qualification
1 0..1
Directory filename File

• Qualifiers can be used to reduce the

multiplicity of an association

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Qualification: Another Example
Company

* Lists
StockExchange * tickerSymbol

Lists
StockExchange
*
tickerSymbol *
1 Company

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 Inheritance

Button

CancelButton ZoneButton

• Inheritance is another special case of an association denoting

a “kind-of” hierarchy
• Inheritance simplifies the analysis model by introducing a
taxonomy
• The children classes inherit the attributes and operations of
the parent class.
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 Packages

• Packages help you to organize UML models to increase their

readability
• We can use the UML package mechanism to organize classes
into subsystems

Account

Bank Customer

• Any complex system can be decomposed into subsystems,

where each subsystem is modeled as a package.

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Sequence Diagrams Focus on
Controlflow

• Used during analysis

TicketMachine
Passenger • To refine use case descriptions
selectZone()
• to find additional objects (“participating
objects”)
• Used during system design
TicketMachine
• to refine subsystem interfaces
insertCoins() zone2price
• Instances are represented Messages
by ->
selectZone() Operations
rectangles. Actors by sticky figureson
insertCoins() participating Object
• Lifelines
pickupChange() are represented by dashed
pickupChange() lines
pickUpTicket()
• Messages are represented by arrows
• Activations are represented by narrow
pickUpTicket() rectangles.

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Sequence Diagrams can also model
the Flow of Data
ZoneButton TarifSchedule Display
Passenger

selectZone()
lookupPrice(selection)

price
displayPrice(price)
Dataflow
…continued on next slide...

• The source of an arrow indicates the activation which sent the message
• Horizontal dashed arrows indicate data flow, for example return results
from a message

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 Sequence Diagrams: Iteration &
Condition
…continued from previous slide...

ChangeProcessor CoinIdentifier Display CoinDrop

Passenger

*insertChange(coin) lookupCoin(coin)

price
Iteration displayPrice(owedAmount)

[owedAmount<0] returnChange(-owedAmount)
Condition
…continued on next slide...

• Iteration is denoted by a * preceding the message name

• Condition is denoted by boolean expression in [ ] before the message
name

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 Creation and destruction
…continued from previous slide...

ChangeProcessor
Passenger
Creation of Ticket
createTicket(selection)

Ticket
print()

free()
Destruction of Ticket

• Creation is denoted by a message arrow pointing to the object

• Destruction is denoted by an X mark at the end of the destruction activation
• In garbage collection environments, destruction can be used to denote the end of the
useful life of an object.

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 Sequence Diagram Properties

• UML sequence diagram represent behavior in terms of

interactions
• Useful to identify or find missing objects
• Time consuming to build, but worth the investment
• Complement the class diagrams (which represent structure).

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 Activity Diagrams

• An activity diagram is a special case of a state chart diagram

• The states are activities (“functions”)
• An activity diagram is useful to depict the workflow in a
system

Handle Document Archive

Incident Incident Incident

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Activity Diagrams allow to model Decisions

Decision

[lowPriority]
Open Allocate
Incident Resources

[fire & highPriority]

[not fire & highPriority]

Notify
Fire Chief

Notify
Police Chief

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Activity Diagrams can model Concurrency
• Synchronization of multiple activities
• Splitting the flow of control into multiple threads

Allocate
Splitting Resources Synchronization

Open Coordinate Archive

Incident Resources Incident

Document
Incident

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Activity Diagrams: Grouping of Activities

• Activities may be grouped into swimlanes to denote the

object or subsystem that implements the activities.

Allocate Dispatcher
Resources

Open Coordinate Archive

Incident Resources Incident

FieldOfficer
Document
Incident

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 Activity Diagram vs. Statechart Diagram
Statechart Diagram for Incident
Focus on the set of attributes of a single abstraction (object, system)
Event causes
state transition

Active Inactive Closed Archived

Incident- Incident- Incident-
Handled Documented Archived

Activity Diagram for Incident

(Focus on dataflow in a system)

Handle Document Archive

Incident Incident Incident

Triggerless
Completion of activity transition
causes state transition
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 UML Summary

• UML provides a wide variety of notations for representing

many aspects of software development
• Powerful, but complex
• UML is a programming language
• Can be misused to generate unreadable models
• Can be misunderstood when using too many exotic features
• We concentrated on a few notations:
• Functional model: Use case diagram
• Object model: class diagram
• Dynamic model: sequence diagrams, statechart and activity diagrams

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