UML – Unified Modeling Language

● Visual language.
● Used to model systems and system
development
– system requirements
– system structure
– system behaviors
● Object-Oriented
– but this doesn't mean implementation must be OO.

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 Software Engineering History
● In the old days : structural programming
– procedures, functions, collections of functions, etc.
● Structured Analysis and Design
– based on some formal design documents
● data flow, state models, task diagrams
● OOP and Object Oriented Design
– Booch, OMT, OOSE: competing methods.
● unified as "UML"

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 Why learn UML?
● It's good to study formal design techniques,
models, languages, etc.
● UML is an industry standard.
– lots of tools are available.
● Many large software systems are modeled
using UML in the real world.
● It's fun to draw pictures with stick figures!

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 Software Methodology
● The process used (by designers, programmers,
testers, managers, etc) to develop a software
system.
● UML is not tied to any specific methodology
– although it is often associated with specific
approaches an processes.

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 System development activities
● Requirements gathering
● Requirements analysis
● Design (to meet requirements)
● Implement (to the design)
● Test (make sure implementation meets
requirements)
● Deploy (sell!).

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The Waterfall Methodology
Requirements
● Each step is completed in detail for
the entire system before moving to Design
the next step. Implementation
● The goal is to cover every detail and Test
consider all possibilities before Deploy
design and implementation.

● For some types of activities this is necessary!

● Consider sending a man to the moon. Once the rocket
has launched you can't decide to switch engine designs.
● In general this model is not realistic for many type of
software systems (won't lead to low-cost/high-quality).

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 Iterative Approach
● Entire cycle is repeated multiple times.
– it's not necessary to complete all steps each
iteration.
– Can start with base functionality (requirements) and
build upon this incrementally.
● General idea is to start with a coarse set of
models, then iteratively refine and rework the
models.
– The hope is that the process converges!

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 Spiral
Requirements

Requirements

Requirements

Design
Design
Design
Test

Test

Test

Implement

Implement

Implement

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 UML and process
● UML can be used to document each of the
steps:
– requirements as use-case diagrams
– design as OO models and structural models
– Implementation (typically as OO, but doesn't need
to be).
– Tests

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 UML
● Alphabet: symbols (drawing primitives) and
strings.
● Words: grouping of elements from alphabet.
– smallest unit that has meaning
– Two kinds:
● Concepts
– drawn as rectangles
● Relationships (between concepts)
– drawn as lines connecting two concepts that are related.

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 Sentences
● A diagram that depicts the relationship(s)
between some concepts is a UML sentence.
Teach
Teacher Student

Evaluate
Teacher Student

Ignore
Teacher Student

● Implied order when reading is left-to-right, top-

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 UML and Objects
● UML uses objects and classes to model
concepts.
● Relationships are called associations in UML.
● A class is the definition of a type of object.
● Student is a class
– Joe Smith could be an object of type Student
– Usually shown as "Joe Smith:Student"

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 Attributes
● Objects can have attributes
– the things the object knows
● A class can include a list of attributes:
Student class name

Name
RID
attribute names
Term Project
Grade

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 Objects and attributes
● For an object, each attribute can have a value.
– typically we only list the attributes relevant to the
context of the diagram.

Student Joe Smith:Student

Name Name = "Joe L. Smith"

RID Term Project= E-Bay Clone
Term Project
Grade

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 Classes and operations (methods)
● A class can include a set of operations
– specification of what objects of the class can do
– processing.
● Keep in mind that UML classes are not tied to
any implementation method
– we don't include code or even formal prototypes.
● Keep in mind that the operations shown in any
diagram are only those relevant to that diagram
(to the context in which the class is displayed).
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 Class Examples

Teacher name Student

Term Project
attributes
Caffeine Intake
Give Lecture
Assign project Work on project
operations Sleep
Induce Sleep
Grade project

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 Example Diagram

Student
Teacher
Caffeine Intake
Prepare Lecture
Induce Sleep Sleep

Owns
Needs
Soda Machine

Location
Price

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 Messages
● Communication between classes is modeled as
messages
– A message is a type of interaction between objects
of specific classes.
● Communication between objects is called
stimulus
– an instance of a message between two objects.
● A message models invocation of an operation.

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 Stimulus
● Sender object is called the client
● Receiver object is called the supplier
– supplies the processing of the operation.
● A single diagram can include many messages
– the order is specified (it often is important!).
● A messages (stimulus) is drawn as an arrow
pointing from the sender to the receiver labeled
with the message order and operation.

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 Example
4: Wake Up

Teacher

1: Prepare

Student
2: Present

Lecture
3: Induce Sleep

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 Another Example
4: Wake Up

Dave:Teacher

1: Prepare

:Student
2: Present

UML:Lecture
3: Induce Sleep

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Object Oriented Modeling
Abstraction

Encapsulation

Generalization

Polymorphism

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 Abstraction
● Both concepts and relationships
● Reduce complexity
– Only need to provide details of what is important to
context.
– ignore (or gloss over) details that are not important
to the context.
● Classes and Associations are general
abstractions.
● Objects and Links are specific abstractions.
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 Encapsulation
● Combining attributes and operations into a
single (abstract) entity.
– hides the details related to implementation
● Information hiding
– Treat objects simply as entities with visible
attributes and operations.
– internal state/methods are not relevant outside of
the object/class.

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 Generalization
● Classes can be general (containing attributes
and/or operations relevant to many types of
concepts)
● A class can be specialized version of a general
class (sometimes more than one general
class).
– Inheritence
● Define attributes and operations that are
common to many classes in one general class.

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 Generalization Example
Person

Name
Address
Email
Sleep
Wakeup
Work

Student Teacher

Term Project Soda Machine

Grade Office

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 Polymorphism
● Operations common to all specializations of a
class allow us to refer to the operation
universally.
– the actual methods (implementation) may be very
different.
● Polymorphism allows us to refer generically to
an operation, knowing that the details of the
operation depend on the specific type of object
involved.

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 Polymorphism Example
Person Any object that is of a class
that is a kind of Person (a
Name specialization of Person)
Address has a Work method.
Email
We can consider the
Sleep operation Work no matter
Wakeup what kind of Person object
we have.
Work

Student Teacher

Term Project Soda Machine

Grade Office

Work Work
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 Exercise
● Develop a UML diagram that describes a
simple e-commerce system.
● Potential Concepts:
● Be as complete as you
– User
can.
– Product
● Include
– Shopping Cart
– attributes
– Shopping Cart Entry
– operations
– associations

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