Uml object notations Uml class notations scope Object construction and destruction What are objects? “A discreet entity with a well-defined boundary that encapsulates state and behavior, an instance of a class.”
Objects combine data and function as a unit.
Objects having • Identification: Every object is uniquely identifiable. • State: An object’s state is determined by its attribute values. • Behavior: An object’s behavior is “what it can do for us” – its operations. How to retrieve data from an object • The way to get the data part of an object is by calling one of the functions that the object makes available. These functions are called operations .
• Hiding the data part of an object behind this
layer of operations is known as encapsulation or data-hiding. • Every object is itself an instance of some class that defines the common set of features (attributes and operations) that are shared by all instances of that class . Behavior There are certain things the printer can do for us: switchOn() switchOff() printDocument() pageFeed() clearInkJetNozzles() changeInkCartridge() • Invoking an operation on an object will often cause a change in the values of one or more of its attributes, or in its relationships to other objects, and this may constitute a state transition. • This is a meaningful movement of the object from one state to another state. • An object’s state can also affect its behavior. • For example, if the printer is out of ink (object state = OutOfBlackInk), • then invoking the operation printDocument() will cause it to signal an error. • The actual behavior of printDocument() is therefore state dependent. What is a method
• An operation is the specification of a piece of
behavior. • An implementation of that behavior is called a method An object’s state is determined by its attribute values. • The state of this object is the set of attribute values (in this case 1234567801, “Jim Arlow”, 300.00) held by the object at any point in time. • Typically, some of these attribute values will remain fixed, and some will change over time. • For example, the account number and name will remain fixed, but we hope that the balance goes up steadily! • As the balance changes with time, we see that the object’s state also changes with time. • For example, if the balance is negative, then we may say that object is in the state Overdrawn. • As the balance changes from negative to zero, the object makes a significant change in its nature – it makes the state transition from the state Overdrawn to the state Empty. • Furthermore, as the Account object’s balance becomes positive, it makes another state transition from the state Emptyto the state InCredit. • In fact, any operation invocation that leads to a substantive change in the object’s nature creates a state transition. • UML provides a powerful set of modeling techniques called state machines for modeling state changes An object’s behavior is “what it can do for us” – its operations. How the object can generate the system behavior • Objects generate system behavior by sending messages to each other over links. This is collaboration. UML object notation The UML object icon is a box with two compartments – The top compartment contains the object identifier, which is always underlined. What are classes? • A class describes the features of a set of objects. • “The descriptor for a set of objects that share the same attributes, operations, methods, relationships, and behavior.”
• Every object is an instance of exactly one class
Points related to class • – a class determines the structure (set of features) of all objects of that class. • All objects of the same class must have the same set of operations, the same set of attributes, and the same set of relationships, but may have different attribute values.
• Each object of the class has specific values for the
attributes defined by the class, and will respond to messages by invoking the operations defined by the class. Just think how many classes are there Relationship between class and objects • The relationship between a class and objects of that class is an «instantiate» relationship.
• The dotted arrow is actually a dependency relationship that has
been given a special meaning by the stereotype «instantiate». • anything inside («…») is known as a stereotype, and stereotypes are one of the three UML extensibility mechanisms. • A stereotype is a way of customizing modeling elements – a way of creating variants with new semantics. • In this case, the stereotype «instantiate» turns an ordinary dependency into an instantiation relationship between a class and objects of that class. Dependency • defines a dependency as, • “A relationship between two elements in which a change to one element (the supplier) may affect or supply information needed by the other element (the client).” Class instantiation
• It is the creation of new instances of model
elements. • In this case we are instantiating objects from classes – • we are creating new instances of classes. constructor
• In most OO programming languages, there are
special operations, called constructors, which really belong to the class itself rather than the objects of that class. • The purpose of constructor operations is to create new instances of the class. • The constructor allocates memory for the new object, gives it a unique identity, and sets the initial attribute values for the object. • It also sets any links to other objects. UML class notation Analysis of class In analysis models, you typically only need to show the following: class name; key attributes; key operations; stereotypes (if they have business significance). You typically do not show:
tagged values; operation parameters; visibility; initialization values (unless they have business significance). Name compartment • Class name is in UpperCamelCase – it begins with an uppercase letter, and then is in mixed upper and lowercase, with each word beginning in uppercase. • Special symbols such as punctuation marks, dashes, underscores, ampersands, hashes, and slashes are always avoided. .
• Never abbreviate class, attribute, or operation names.
For example: DepositAccount is always preferable to DpstAccnt.
If there are domain specific acronyms (e.g. CRM - Customer
Relationship Management) that are in common use, and will be understood by all readers of the model, • Classes represent “things”, • so they should have a name that is a noun or a noun phrase, • e.g. Person, Money, BankAccount. Attribute compartment
Attributes are named in lowerCamelCase - starting with a lowercase letter
and then mixed upper and lowercase.
Attribute names are usually nouns or noun phrases as attributes indicate
some “thing” such as an account balance.
You must avoid special symbols and abbreviations.
Visibility • Visibility controls access to the features of a class. Type
• The type of an attribute may be another class or a
primitive type. • The UML specification defines four primitive types that are used in the UML specification itself, • The Object Constraint Language (OCL) is a formal language for expressing constraints in UML models • OCL defines standard operations for these types (except UnlimitedNatural) and adds a new type called Real. Multiplicity • multiplicity allows you to model collections of things or null values. • This constraints relating to the “number of things” participating in a relationship. • Multiplicity allows you to model two distinctly different things by using a multiplicity expression on an attribute • Collections – if the multiplicity expression results in an integer greater than 1, then you are specifying a collection of the type. • For example, colors : Color[7] • Null values – there is a difference in most languages between an attribute that contains an empty or uninitialized object, example Initial value The initial Value allows you to set the value of an attribute at the point of object creation. • The initial Value allows you to specify the value an attribute will take when an object is instantiated from the class. • This is known as the initial value of the attribute because Advanced attribute syntax • «stereotype» attribute { tag1 = value1, tag2 = value2, …}
• In this example, we have recorded that RAMadded the address
attribute to some class on 20 March 2004. Operation compartment • Operations are functions that are bound to a particular class. As such, they have all of the characteristics of functions: • Name • Parameters list • Return type Operation signature
• The combination of the operation name, types of
all the parameters, and the return type is the operation signature • Every operation of a class must have a unique signature, as it is this signature that gives the operation its identity. • When a message is sent to an object, the message signature is compared to the operation signatures defined in the object’s class, and if a match is found the appropriate operation is invoked on the object. Parameter direction
• Operation parameters can be given a
direction: • operation( in p1:Integer, inout p2:Integer, out p3:Integer, return p4:Integer, return p5:Integer ) • If the direction is not specified, then it defaults to in. Parameter default values
• You can give an operation parameter a default
value. • When the operation is called, if no value is given for that parameter, its default value will be used. Query operations
• Each operation has a property called
isQuery. • Is query : true(no change ) on • Is query : flase example Scope • There are two types of scopes 1)instance scope(object scope) 2)class scope. • Scope. • —Instance scope attributes and operations belong to or operate on specific objects: – –instance scope operations can access other instance scope operations or instance scope attributes; – –instance scope operations can access all class scope attributes or operations. • —Class scope attributes and operations belong to, or operate on, the whole class of objects: • –class scope attributes and operations can only access other class scope operations. Instance scope objects have their own attributes defined in their class. so that different objects can have different attribute values. Similarly, the operations that you have seen so far all act on specific objects. This is the normal case, and we say that these attributes and operations have instance scope. Class scope • Class scope attributes and operations belong to, or operate on, the whole class of objects. Notation of instance and class scope What Scope determines access
• Whether an operation can access another feature of the class or not is
determined by the scope of the operation and the scope of the feature it is trying to access.
• Instance scope operations can access other instance scope attributes
and operations, and also all of the class scope attributes and operations.
• Class scope operations can only access other class scope operations and attributes.
• Class scope operations can’t access instance scope operations
because: • there might not be any class instances created yet; • even if class instances exist, you don’t know which one to use. Constructors & destructors • Constructors are special operations that create new instances of classes – these operations must be class scope. Naming constructors • Different languages have different standards for naming constructors. • A completely generic approach is just to call the constructor create(…).
• Java, C#, and C++ all demand that the
constructor name is the same as the class name. A class may have many constructors, all with the same name, but each distinguished by a different parameter list. The constructor with no parameters is known as the default constructor. You can use constructor parameters to initialize attribute values at the point of object construction. Example on constructor &destructors • The numberOfMembers attribute is a private class scope attribute of type int. • This attribute is therefore shared by all objects of the Club Member class, and will have the same value for each of those objects.
• At the point at which the numberOfMembers attribute
is created, it is initialized to zero. • Now, if this were an instance scope attribute, • each object would get its own copy of it when the object was created. • However, it is class scope – this means that there is only one copy, and this single copy is only initialized once. • create(...) operation you invoke the class scope operation incrementNumberOfmembers(). • As you might expect from its name, this operation increments the value of the class scope attribute numberOfMembers. • Every time an instance of the class is created, numberOfMembers is incremented – a counter has been added to the class! • You can query the value of numberOfMembers by using the class scope operation getNumberOfMembers(). This returns a number that is equal to the number of ClubMember objects created. destructors
• Destructors are special operations that “clean
up” when objects are destroyed. • an operation to the class to decrement numberOfMembers, then ensuring that this operation is called every time an instance of ClubMember is destroyed. • Some OO languages have special instance scope operations called destructors that are automatically called at the point of object destruction. • In C++, for example, the destructor is always of the form ~ClassName( parameterList ). • In C++ the destructor operation is guaranteed to be called at the point at which an object is destroyed.
