Chapter 4 Building Structural Diagrams

Interface properties

You can modify an object's properties from its property sheet. To open an interface property sheet, double-click its diagram symbol or its Browser entry in the Interfaces folder. The following sections detail the property sheet tabs that contain the properties most commonly entered for interfaces.

The General tab contains the following properties:

Property Description
Name Specifies the name of the item, which should be clear and meaningful, and should convey the item's purpose to non-technical users.
Code Specifies the technical name of the object, which is used for generating code or scripts.
Comment Descriptive comment for the object.
Stereotype Extends the semantics of the object beyond the core UML definition. The following common stereotypes are available by default:

  • <<metaclass>> - interface that will interact with a model that contains classes with metaclass stereotypes
  • <<powertype>> - a metaclass whose instances are sub-classes of another class
  • <<process>> - heavyweight flow that can execute concurrently with other processes
  • <<thread>> - lightweight flow that can execute concurrently with other threads within the same process. Usually executes inside the address space of an enclosing process
  • <<utility>> - a class that has no instances
Visibility Specifies the visibility of the object, how it is seen outside its enclosing namespace. When an interface is visible to another object, it may influence the structure or behavior of the object, or similarly, the other object can affect the properties of the interface. You can choose between:

  • Private – only to the object itself
  • Protected – only to the object and its inherited objects
  • Package – to all objects contained within the same package
  • Public – to all objects (option by default)
Inner to Indicates the name of the class or interface to which the current interface belongs as an inner classifier
Type Allows you to specify that an interface is a generic type, or that it is bound to one. You can choose between:

  • Interface
  • Generic
  • Bound – If you select this option, then an additional list becomes available to the right, where you can specify the generic type to which the interface is bound.


If you specify either Generic or Bound, then the Generic tab is displayed, allowing you to control the associated type variables (see Interface property sheet Generic tab. For more information on generic types and binding interfaces to them, see the Generic types and methods section.
Generate The interface is automatically included among the objects generated from the model when you launch the generation process

 

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