UML Class Diagrams

Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagrams provide a quick summary of a class and can also be used to denote relationships between classes.

• The most basic UML class diagram consists of one class.
• In each class the following are specified:
  • The class name
  • Attributes (a.k.a., fields or characteristics) of the class or instance from the class.
    • Each attribute shown with its name a colon and its type
    • The minus sign in front of each attribute indicates that the attribute is private.
  • Behaviors (a.k.a., methods or member functions) of the class or instance from the class.
    • Each method is shown with its name, parameter list, a colon, and the return type.
    • The plus sign in front of each attribute indicates that the method is public.

Associations

• Often there are relationships between classes and/or objects.
• One very general relationship is known as an association which links two objects.

• Here we denote the relationship between a Student instance and a City instance (representing the student's hometown).
• The role name (found next to the arrow) corresponds to the attribute name, hometown (in the Student class).
• Since the hometown attribute in the Student class can hold a reference to a City object, it provides a way to navigate from a student to his/her home town.
• Here the arrow head on the association indicates a one-way navigation from student to hometown.
• The diagram does not denote a way to navigate from a city to all the students who consider it their home town.
• Some associations may involve objects from the same class.
• For example:

• Here the buddy attribute in one Student instance can hold a reference to another Student instance.

Aggregation

• Some associations imply a "whole-part" relationship.
• Consider the relationship between Section objects and Student objects:

• The unfilled (open) diamond on the Section side of the association line denotes that the students belong to (or make up) the section object.
• This kind of association is called an aggregation.
• The 0.. on the Student side indicates that there can be zero or more students in a section.
• This is called the multiplicity of the participation of the Student object(s) in this aggregation.
• Aggregation is made up of objects that can be shared or exchanged (they are not "owned" by the aggregating object).

Composition

• Some "whole-part" relationships represent an even stronger link.

• The filled (closed) diamond on the Course side of the association line denotes that the sections belong exclusively to a course and cannot exist independently.
• This kind of association is called a composition.
• Note that the sections attribute does not need to be listed in the list of attributes in the Course UML class diagram since it is shown on the composition line.

Dependency

• Often times one class may make use of another class.
• This is known as a dependency since one class is dependent upon another class.
• We represent such a dependency with a dashed line with an arrow. The arrow points to the class that is depended upon.
• For example, if a BankAccount class makes use of methods from the Math class in order to calculate interest, we could represent that as follows:

• Both pow() and sqrt() in the Math class are underlined to denote that they are class (static) methods.

Inheritance

• The inheritance relationship is shown in UML class diagrams using an open arrow from the subclass to the superclass.
• The open arrow signifies that the superclass is a generalization of the subclass.
• Here is the UML class diagram for the Shape and Circle classes described on the Inheritance page.
• In addition, a Rectangle class is shown.
• The two fields of the Rectangle class are declared as protected which is signified with the # symbol.

Abstract Classes/Methods

• The name of an abstract class is italicized.
• In addition, abstract methods are italicized.
• For example, draw, erase, and zoom are abstract methods in the abstract Shape class below.

Interfaces

• The name of an interface is italicized and «interface» is placed above the interface name.
• A dashed line going from a class to an interface, terminating with an open arrow signifies that the class implements the interface.
• For example, the following diagram indicates that the LoginScreen class implements the Serializable interface.

Example Diagram

• The name of an abstract class appears in italics and may be preceded by «abstract». See DesktopItem.
• The name of an interface appears in italics and is preceded by «interface». See Group.
• Abstract methods appear in italics. See DesktopItem.open().
• The inheritance relationship is shown using a line with an open arrow pointing from the subclass to the superclass.
• A class implementing an interface is shown using a dotted line with an open arrow pointing from the class to the interface it implements.
• A class may indicate that it makes use of another class/interface using a dotted line with an arrow pointing to the class that is used.
• A class indicates that it is contains object(s) from another class as a field using a line. (See line from Folder to DesktopItem)
  • At the end of the line next to the class that contains the field should be a open diamond.
  • At the end of the line next to the class that is contained, a number, or range of numbers, indicates how many of the objects are contained. In this example, the Folder can contain zero or more DesktopItems.