Object-Oriented Software Engineering

Practical Software Development using UML and Java

Chapter 5:
Modelling with Classes
5.1 What is UML?
The Unified Modelling Language is a standard graphical
language for modelling object oriented software
• At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of 1990s, the
first object-oriented development processes appeared
• The proliferation of methods and notations tended to
cause considerable confusion
• Two important methodologists Rumbaugh and Booch decided
to merge their approaches in 1994.
— They worked together at the Rational Software
Corporation
• In 1995, another methodologist, Jacobson, joined the
team
— His work focused on use cases
• In 1997 the Object Management Group (OMG) started the
process of UML standardization
• The latest UML version is 2.5. 1 which was released in
December 2017

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UML diagrams
• Class diagrams
— describe classes and their relationships
• Interaction diagrams
— show the behaviour of systems in terms of
how objects interact with each other
(sequence diagrams and communication
diagrams)
• State diagrams and activity diagrams
— show how systems behave internally
• Component and deployment diagrams
— show how the various components of systems
are arranged logically and physically

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UML features

• It has detailed semantics

• It has extension mechanisms
• It has an associated textual language
— Object Constraint Language (OCL)

The objective of UML is to assist in

software development
— It is not a methodology

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What constitutes a good model?

A model should
• use a standard notation
• be understandable by clients and users
• lead software engineers to have insights
about the system
• provide abstraction

Models are used:

• to help create designs
• to permit analysis and review of those
designs.
• as the core documentation describing the
system.

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5.2 Essentials of UML Class Diagrams

The main symbols shown on class diagrams are:

• Classes
- represent the types of data themselves
• Associations
- represent linkages between instances of
classes
• Attributes
- are simple data found in classes and their
instances
• Operations
- represent the functions performed by the
classes and their instances
• Generalizations
- group classes into inheritance hierarchies

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Classes

A class is simply represented as a box with the

name of the class inside
• The diagram may also show the attributes and
operations
• The complete signature of an operation is:
operationName(parameterName: parameterType …):
returnType

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5.3 Associations and Multiplicity

An association is used to show how two classes

are related to each other
• Symbols indicating multiplicity are shown at
each end of the association

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Labelling associations
• Each association can be labelled, to make
explicit the nature of the association

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Analyzing and validating associations

• Many-to-one
— A company has many employees,
— An employee can only work for one
company.
- This company will not store data about
the moonlighting activities of
employees!
— A company can have zero employees
- E.g. a ‘shell’ company
— It is not possibleworksFor
to be an 1
Employee Company
employee * unless you work for a
company

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Analyzing and validating associations

• Many-to-many
— An assistant can work for many
managers
— A manager can have many assistants
— Assistants can work in pools
— Managers can have a group of
assistants
— Some managers might have zero
assistants.
— Is it *possible for an assistant
Assistant 1..** Manager
to
supervisor
have, perhaps temporarily, zero
managers?

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Analyzing and validating associations

• One-to-one
— For each company, there is exactly
one board of directors
— A board is the board of only one
company
— A company must always have a board
— A board must always be of some
company
Company
1 1 Bo ardOfDire c to rs

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Analyzing and validating associations

Avoid unnecessary one-to-one associations

Avoid this
do this

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A more complex example
• A booking is always for exactly one passenger
— no booking with zero passengers
— a booking could never involve more than one
passenger.
• A Passenger can have any number of Bookings
— a passenger could have no bookings at all
— a passenger could have more than one booking

• The frame around this diagram is an optional

feature that any UML 2.0 may possess.

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Association classes
• Sometimes, an attribute that concerns two
associated classes cannot be placed in either
of the classes
• The following are equivalent

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Reflexive associations
• It is possible for an association to connect
a class to itself

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Directionality in associations
• Associations are by default bi-directional
• It is possible to limit the direction of an
association by adding an arrow at one end

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5.4 Generalization

Specializing a superclass into two or more

subclasses
• A generalization set is a labeled group of
generalizations with a common superclass
• The label (sometimes called the
discriminator) describes the criteria used in
the specialization

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Avoiding unnecessary generalizations

Inappropriate
hierarchy of
classes, which
should be
instances
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Avoiding unnecessary generalizations (cont)

Improved class diagram, with its

corresponding instance diagram
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Handling multiple discriminators
• Creating higher-level generalization

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Handling multiple discriminators
• Using multiple inheritance

• Using the Player-Role pattern (in Chapter

6)

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Avoiding having instances change class
• An instance should never need to change
class

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5.5 Object Diagrams
• A link is an instance of an association
— In the same way that we say an object is an instance of a
class

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Associations versus generalizations in
object diagrams
• Associations describe the relationships that
will exist between instances at run time.
— When you show an instance diagram
generated from a class diagram, there will
be an instance of both classes joined by
an association

• Generalizations describe relationships

between classes in class diagrams.
— They do not appear in instance diagrams at
all.
— An instance of any class should also be
considered to be an instance of each of
that class’s superclasses

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5.6 More Advanced Features: Aggregation
• Aggregations are special associations that
represent ‘part-whole’ relationships.
— The ‘whole’ side is often called the
assembly or the aggregate
— This symbol is a shorthand notation
association named isPartOf

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When to use an aggregation

As a general rule, you can mark an association

as an aggregation if the following are true:
• You can state that
— the parts ‘are part of’ the aggregate
— or the aggregate ‘is composed of’ the parts
• When something owns or controls the
aggregate, then they also own or control the
parts

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Composition
• A composition is a strong kind of aggregation
— if the aggregate is destroyed, then the
parts are destroyed as well

• Two alternatives for addresses

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Aggregation hierarchy

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Propagation
• A mechanism where an operation in an
aggregate is implemented by having the
aggregate perform that operation on its
parts
• At the same time, properties of the parts
are often propagated back to the aggregate
• Propagation is to aggregation as
inheritance is to generalization.
— The major difference is:
- inheritance is an implicit mechanism
- propagation has to be programmed when
required

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Interfaces

An interface describes a portion of the visible

behaviour of a set of objects.
• An interface is similar to a class, except
it lacks instance variables and implemented
methods

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Notes and descriptive text

• Descriptive text and other diagrams

— Embed your diagrams in a larger
document
— Text can explain aspects of the
system using any notation you like
— Highlight and expand on important
features, and give rationale
• Notes:
— A note is a small block of text
embedded in a UML diagram
— It acts like a comment in a
programming language

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5.7 Object Constraint Language (OCL)

OCL is a specification language designed to

formally specify constraints in software
modules
• An OCL expression simply specifies a
logical fact (a constraint) about the
system that must remain true
• A constraint cannot have any side-effects
— it cannot compute a non-Boolean result
nor modify any data.
• OCL statements in class diagrams can
specify what the values of attributes and
associations must be

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OCL statements

OCL statements can be built from:

• References to role names, association
names, attributes and the results of
operations
• The logical values true and false
• Logical operators such as and, or, =,
>, < or <> (not equals)
• String values such as: ‘a string’
• Integers and real numbers
• Arithmetic operations *, /, +, -

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An example: constraints on Polygons

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5.8 Detailed Example: A Class Diagram for
Genealogy

• Problems
— A person must have two parents
— Marriages not properly accounted for

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Genealogy example: Possible solutions

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5.9 The Process of Developing Class
Diagrams
You can create UML models at different
stages and with different purposes and
levels of details
• Exploratory domain model:
— Developed in domain analysis to learn
about the domain
• System domain model:
— Models aspects of the domain
represented by the system
• System model:
— Includes also classes used to build the
user interface and system architecture

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System domain model vs System model

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System domain model vs System model
• The system domain model omits many classes
that are needed to build a complete system
— Can contain less than half the classes
of the system.
— Should be developed to be used
independently of particular sets of
- user interface classes
- architectural classes
• The complete system model includes
— The system domain model
— User interface classes
— Architectural classes
— Utility classes

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Suggested sequence of activities
• Identify a first set of candidate classes
• Add associations and attributes
• Find generalizations
• List the main responsibilities of each class
• Decide on specific operations
• Iterate over the entire process until the
model is satisfactory
— Add or delete classes, associations,
attributes, generalizations,
responsibilities or operations
— Identify interfaces
— Apply design patterns
Don’t be too disorganized. Don’t be too
rigid either.

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Identifying classes

• When developing a domain model you tend to

discover classes
• When you work on the user interface or the
system architecture, you tend to invent
classes
— Needed to solve a particular design
problem
— (Inventing may also occur when creating
a domain model)
• Reuse should always be a concern
— Frameworks
— System extensions
— Similar systems

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A simple technique for discovering domain
classes
• Look at a source material such as a
description of requirements
• Extract the nouns and noun phrases
• Eliminate nouns that:
— are redundant
— represent instances
— are vague or highly general
— not needed in the application
• Pay attention to classes in a domain
model that represent types of users or
other actors

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Identifying associations and attributes

• Start with classes you think are most

central and important
• Decide on the clear and obvious data
it must contain and its relationships
to other classes.
• Work outwards towards the classes that
are less important.
• Avoid adding many associations and
attributes to a class
—A system is simpler if it
manipulates less information

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Tips about identifying and specifying valid
associations
• An association should exist if a class
- possesses
- controls
- is connected to
- is related to
- is a part of
- has as parts
- is a member of, or
- has as members
some other class in your model
• Specify the multiplicity at both ends
• Label it clearly.

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Actions versus associations
• A common mistake is to represent actions as
if they were associations

Better: The operation creates

borrow a, and
Loan
Bad, due to the use of associations
the return
operation sets the
returnedDate
that are actions attribute.

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Identifying attributes

• Look for information that must be

maintained about each class
• Several nouns rejected as classes, may
now become attributes
• An attribute should generally contain
a simple value
— E.g. string, number

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Tips about identifying and specifying valid
attributes
• It is not good to have many duplicate
attributes
• If a subset of a class’s attributes form a
coherent group, then create a distinct class
containing these attributes

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Airline Reservation System

ABC Airlines runs sightseeing flight s

from Tokyo, the capital of Japan. The
reservation system keeps track of
passengers who will be flying in specific
seats on various flights, as well as people
who will form the crew. For the crew, the
system needs to track what everyone does,
and who supervises whom. ABC Airlines runs
several daily numbered flights on a regular
schedule. ABC Airlines expects to expand in
the future, therefore the system needs to
be flexible; in particular, it will be
adding a frequent-flier plan.

4
An example (attributes and associations)

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Identifying generalizations and interfaces
• There are two ways to identify
generalizations:
— bottom-up
- Group together similar classes creating a new
superclass
— top-down
- Look for more general classes first, specialize
them if needed
• Create an interface, instead of a superclass
if
— The classes are very dissimilar except for
having a few operations in common
— One or more of the classes already have
their own superclasses
— Different implementations of the same class
might be available

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An example (generalization)

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Allocating responsibilities to classes
A responsibility is something that the system is
required to do.
• Each functional requirement must be attributed to one
of the classes
— All the responsibilities of a given class should be
clearly related.
— If a class has too many responsibilities, consider
splitting it into distinct classes
— If a class has no responsibilities attached to it,
then it is probably useless
— When a responsibility cannot be attributed to any
of the existing classes, then a new class should be
created

• To determine responsibilities
— Perform use case analysis
— Look for verbs and nouns describing actions in the
system description

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Categories of responsibilities

• Setting and getting the values of

attributes
• Creating and initializing new instances
• Loading to and saving from persistent
storage
• Destroying instances
• Adding and deleting links of associations
• Copying, converting, transforming,
transmitting or outputting
• Computing numerical results
• Navigating and searching
• Other specialized work

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An example (responsibilities)

• Creating a new
regular flight
• Searching for a
flight
• Modifying attributes
of a flight
• Creating a specific
flight
• Booking a passenger
• Canceling a booking

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An example (responsibilities)

• Creating a new
regular flight (A)
• Searching for a
flight (A)
• Modifying attributes
of a flight (R)
• Creating a specific
flight
(R)
• Booking a passenger
• (P)
• Canceling a booking
(B)

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Prototyping a class diagram on paper

• As you identify classes, you write their

names on small cards
• As you identify attributes and
responsibilities, you list them on the
cards
— If you cannot fit all the
responsibilities on one card:
- this suggests you should split the class
into two related classes.
• Move the cards around on a whiteboard to
arrange them into a class diagram.
• Draw lines among the cards to represent
associations and generalizations.

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Identifying operations

Operations are needed to realize the

responsibilities of each class
• There may be several operations per
responsibility
• The main operations that implement a
responsibility are normally declared
public
• Other methods that collaborate to
perform the responsibility must be as
private as possible

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An example (class collaboration)

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Class collaboration ‘a’ SpecificFlight * 0..1 Airplane

Making a bi-directional link between two

existing objects;
e.g. adding a link between an instance of
SpecificFlight and an instance of
Airplane.
 
1.(public) The instance of SpecificFlight
— makes a one-directional link to the
instance of Airplane
— then calls operation 2.
2.(non-public) The instance of Airplane
— makes a one-directional link back to
the instance of SpecificFlight

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Class collaboration ‘b’ S pe c ific Flig ht 1 0..1
0..1 Flig htLo g
+ createFlightLog [b1] FlightLog [b2]

Creating an object and linking it to an

existing object
e.g. creating a FlightLog, and linking it to a
SpecificFlight.
 
1. (public) The instance of SpecificFlight
— calls the constructor of FlightLog
(operation 2)
— then makes a one-directional link to
the new instance of FlightLog.
2. (non-public) Class FlightLog’s constructor
— makes a one-directional link back to
the instance of SpecificFlight.

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 Pas s e ng e rRo le Bo o king S pe c ific Flight

Class collaboration ‘c’ + makeBooking [c1]

addLinkToBooking [c4]
1 * Booking [c2] * 1
addLinkToBooking [c3]

Creating an association class, given two

existing objects
e.g. creating an instance of Booking, which
will link a SpecificFlight to a PassengerRole.
1. (public) The instance of PassengerRole
— calls the constructor of Booking (operation 2).
2. (non-public) Class Booking’s constructor, among its other actions
— makes a one-directional link back to the instance of PassengerRole
— makes a one-directional link to the instance of SpecificFlight
— calls operations 3 and 4.
3. (non-public) The instance of SpecificFlight
— makes a one-directional link to the instance of Booking.
4. (non-public) The instance of PassengerRole
— makes a one-directional link to the instance
of Booking.

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 Airplane
Class collaboration ‘d’ S pe c ific Flig ht
+ changeAirplane [d1]
* 0..1
addLinkToSpecificFlight [a2, d3]
deleteLinkToSpecificFlight [d2]

Changing the destination of a link

e.g. changing the Airplane of to a SpecificFlight, from
airplane1 to airplane2
 1. (public) The instance of SpecificFlight
— deletes the link to airplane1
— makes a one-directional link to airplane2
— calls operation 2
— then calls operation 3.
2. (non-public) airplane1
— deletes its one-directional link to the instance of
SpecificFlight.
3. (non-public) airplane2
— makes a one-directional link to the instance of SpecificFlight.

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Class collaboration ‘e’ Emplo ye e Ro le
*
+ getName [e2] crewMember
*
S pe c ific Flig ht

+ findCrewMember [e1]

Searching for an associated instance

e.g. searching for a crew member associated with a
SpecificFlight that has a certain name.
 
1. (public) The instance of SpecificFlight
— creates an Iterator over all the crewMember links of
the SpecificFlight\
— for each of them call operation 2, until it finds a
match.
2. (may be public) The instance of EmployeeRole returns
its name.

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5.10 Implementing Class Diagrams in Java
• Attributes are implemented as instance variables
• Generalizations are implemented using extends
• Interfaces are implemented using implements
• Associations are normally implemented using instance variables
• Divide each two-way association into two one-way associations
—so each associated class has an instance variable.
• For a one-way association where the multiplicity at the other
end is ‘one’ or ‘optional’
—declare a variable of that class (a reference)
• For a one-way association where the multiplicity at the other
end is ‘many’:
—use a collection class implementing List, such as Vector

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Example: SpecificFlight

class SpecificFlight
{
private Calendar date;
private RegularFlight regularFlight;
...
// Constructor that should only be called
from
// addSpecificFlight
SpecificFlight( Calendar aDate,
RegularFlight aRegularFlight)
{
date = aDate;
regularFlight = aRegularFlight;
}
}

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Example: RegularFlight

class RegularFlight
{
private List specificFlights;
...
// Method that has primary responsibility
public void addSpecificFlight(Calendar
aDate)
{
SpecificFlight newSpecificFlight;
newSpecificFlight = new
SpecificFlight(aDate, this);

[Link](newSpecificFlight);
}
...
}
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5.11 Difficulties and Risks when creating class
diagrams
• Modeling is particularly difficult skill
— Even excellent programmers have
difficulty thinking at the
appropriate level of abstraction
— Education traditionally focus more on
design and programming than modeling
• Resolution:
— Ensure that tem members have adequate
training
— Have experienced modeler as part of
the team
— Review all models thoroughly

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 case
• Your local railway station is going to install
automatic ticket dispensing machines. Each
machine will be able to give passengers up-to-
date train timetable and ticket price
information. The machines must also issue
tickets and transfer statistics about ticket sales
to a central computer system. Railway staff
must be able to update ticket prices and
timetable information.
• Objects should be rejected if they are
– Attributes
– Redundant
– Too vague
– Too tied up with physical inputs and outputs
– Associations
– Outside the scope of the system
– Really an operation or event
– Represent the whole system
• railway station
• ticket dispensing machines
• Passengers
• Timetable
• ticket price information
• Tickets
• Statistics
• ticket sales
• computer system
• Railway staff