Chapter 4 Building Structural Diagrams

Class diagram objects

You can create the following objects in a class diagram:

Object	Tool	Symbol	Description
Class			Set of objects sharing the same attributes, operations, methods, and relationships. See Classes (OOM).
Interface			Descriptor for the externally visible operations of a class, object, or other entity without specification of internal structure. See Interfaces (OOM).
Port			Interaction point between a classifier and its environment. See Ports (OOM).
Generalization			Link between classes showing that the sub-class shares the structure or behavior defined in one or more superclasses. See Generalizations (OOM).
Require Link			Connects a class, component, or port to an interface. See Require Links (OOM).
Association			Structural relationship between objects of different classes. See Associations (OOM).
Aggregation			A form of association that specifies a part-whole relationship between a class and an aggregate class (example: a car has an engine and wheels). See Associations (OOM).
Composition			A form of aggregation but with strong ownership and coincident lifetime of parts by the whole; the parts live and die with the whole (example: an invoice and its invoice line). See Associations (OOM).
Dependency			Relationship between two modeling elements, in which a change to one element will affect the other element. See Dependencies (OOM).
Realization			Semantic relationship between classifiers, in which one classifier specifies a contract that another classifier guarantees to carry out. See Realizations (OOM).
Inner link			Exists when a class is declared within another class or interface. See Composite and inner classifiers.
Attribute	N/A	N/A	Named property of a class. See Associations (OOM).
Operation	N/A	N/A	Service that can be requested from a class. See Operations (OOM).

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