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subject > representation > abstraction > data abstraction > association > link |
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 |
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