“Object Oriented Software Engineering”

SE-201
Lecture 9
“ Modeling with Classes”

By: Sajid Ullah

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 2
Analyzing and validating associations
• It is very common to make errors when creating associations .

• Most importantly, you should always ask yourself whether a less restrictive multiplicity could also makes
sense in some circumstances.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 3
Analyzing and validating associations
• In general, you should err on the side of being less restrictive so as to increase the flexibility of the
system.

• On the other hand, using ‘many’, as opposed to ‘one’, when it is not justified, will increase a system’s
complexity and reduce its efficiency.

• The following points discuss three of the most common patterns of multiplicity.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 4
Analyzing and validating associations
■ One-to-many.

• A company has many employees.

• You might argue that this is incorrect, since somebody might moonlight, working for several companies.

• Finally, since it is not possible to be an employee unless you work for a company, the multiplicity at the
Company end is correctly shown to be exactly one, not optional .

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 5
Analyzing and validating associations
■ Many-to-many.

• An administrative assistant can work for many managers.

• It is also the case that some managers might have zero assistants.

• An interesting question arises when you consider whether it is possible for an assistant to have, perhaps
temporarily, zero managers.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 6
Analyzing and validating associations
■ One-to-one.

• For each company, there is exactly one board of directors.

• Also, a board is the board of only one company.

• A company must always have a board, and a board must always be of some company.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 7
Analyzing and validating associations

• The most common multiplicity pattern is one-to-many.

• The next most common is many-to-many.

• One-to-one associations are less common.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 8
Association classes
• In some circumstances, an attribute that concerns two associated classes cannot be placed in either of the
classes.
• For example, imagine the association shown in Figure 3

• In which class should the student’s grade be put?

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 9
 Association classes
• As shown in the left half of Figure 4, an association class is connected to its association by a dashed line.

Fig 4:

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 10
Reflexive associations
• It is possible for an association to connect a class to itself.
• Two examples of this are found in Figure 5.

Fig.5:

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 11
Links as instances of associations
• In the same way that we say an object is an instance of a class, we say that a link is an instance of an
association.

• Each link connects two objects – an instance of each of the two classes involved in the association.

• For example, there will be one link of the Passenger-to-Booking association for every Booking.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 12
Directionality in associations
• Associations and links are by default bi-directional.

• That is, if a Driver object is linked to a Car object, then the Car is also implicitly linked to that Driver.

• It is possible to limit the navigability of an association’s links by adding an arrow at one end.

• For example, Figure below shows two classes that might exist in a calendar application.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 13
Object diagrams
• Class diagrams tell us what classes will exist in a given system, but they are quite abstract.

• An object diagram shows an example configuration of objects and links that may exist at a particular point
during execution of a program.

• Objects are shown as rectangles, just like classes; the difference is that the name of the class is underlined and
preceded by a colon,:Employee, for example.

• You can also give a name to each instance before the colon, as in Pat:Employee, or even omit the class name
entirely if it is clear from the context, such as Pat:.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 14
Object diagrams

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 15
Associations versus generalizations in the
context of object diagrams
• It is a common mistake for beginners to think of generalizations as special associations.
• The differences between the two concepts are profound.

 An association describes a relationship that will exist between instances at runtime.

 A generalization describes a relationship between classes in a class diagram.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 16
Associations versus generalizations in the
context of object diagrams
• When you show an object diagram generated by an association, you show instances of both classes joined by
that association.

• On the other hand, when you show an object diagram generated by an inheritance hierarchy, you show a
single instance of one of its concrete classes.

• That single instance will contain values of the attributes defined in its class, as well as those attributes
inherited from superclasses.

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 17
 Thanks

Course: Object Oriented Software Engineering -Instructor: Mr. Sajid Ullah Lecturer of computing KUST-Email: [email protected] 18