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| subject > representation > abstraction > data abstraction > association > link | 
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| link | ||||
| subject | fact | |||
| link | connects two objects - an instance of each of the two classes involved in the association |  | 
| has definition A reference from one object to another |  | |
| is a subtopic of 5.3 - Associations and Multiplicity |  | |
| is an instance of association |  | |
| is drawn as a line connecting two objects in a UML instance diagram |  | |
| is a kind of data abstraction |  | |
| never has multiplicity symbols |  | |
| data abstraction | groups the pieces of data that describe some entity, so that programmers can manipulate that data as a unit |  | 
| helps a programmer to cope with the complexity of data |  | |
| hides the details of data |  | |
| association | describes a relationship that will exist between instances at run time |  | 
| has default name "has" if it has neither an association name nor a role name |  | |
| has example class Person in a business application might have the following relationships supervisor (association to class Manager) and tasksToDo (association to class Task) |  | |
| has part association name |  | |
| has part role name |  | |
| is bi-directional unless it has an arrow at one end indicating directionality |  | |
| is legitimate only if its links will survive beyond the execution of any particular operation |  | |
| is usually implemented using instance variables in Java: you divide each two-way association into two one-way associations - so each associated class has an instance variable |  | |
| may be implemented in several ways in Java |  | |
| must not be added to a model unless it is relevant to the application - it will be needed to implement some requirement |  | |
| normally represents something that will be stored in a database |  | |
| represents all the links between two classes that may ever exist |  | |
| 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 class in your model |  | |
| shows how two classes are related to each other |  | 
 Next association: many-to-many association     Up: association, data abstraction    Previous association: aggregation
Next association: many-to-many association     Up: association, data abstraction    Previous association: aggregation