Class

Description

A Class is a representation of a type of object that reflects the structure and behavior of such objects within the system. It is a template from which actual running instances are created, although a Class can be defined either to control its own execution or as a template or parameterized Class that specifies parameters that must be defined by any binding Class.

A Class can have attributes (data) and methods (operations or behavior). Classes can inherit characteristics from parent Classes and delegate behavior to other Classes. Class models usually describe the logical structure of the system and are the building blocks from which components are built.

The top section of a Class shows the attributes (or data elements) associated with the Class. These hold the 'state' of an object at run-time. If the information is saved to a data store and can be reloaded, it is termed 'persistent'. The lower section contains the Class operations (or methods at run-time). Operations describe the behavior a Class offers to other Classes, and the internal behavior it has (private methods).

Class elements are generally used in Class diagrams and Composite Structure diagrams.

Enterprise Architect also supports a number of stereotyped Class elements to represent various entities in web-page modeling. A Class can also be integrated with an Associate connector to form an Association Class, to allow the Associate connector to have operations and attributes that define certain types of UML relationship.

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• Active Classes
• Parameterized Classes (Templates)
• Class Diagram
• Composite Structure Diagram
• Association Class
• Association
• Attributes
• Operations
• Web Stereotypes

OMG UML Specification:

The OMG Unified Modeling Language specification, (v2.5.1, pp.194-195) states:

The purpose of a Class is to specify a classification of objects and to specify the Features that characterize the structure and behavior of those objects.

Class is a kind of EncapsulatedClassifier whose Features are Properties, Operations, Receptions, Ports and Connectors. Attributes of a Class are Properties that are owned by the Class. Some of these attributes may represent the ends of binary Associations. Objects of a Class must contain values for each attribute that is a member of that Class, in accordance with the characteristics of the attribute, for example its type and multiplicity.

When an object is instantiated in a Class, for every attribute of the Class that has a specified default, if an initial value of the attribute is not specified explicitly for the instantiation, then the default ValueSpecification is evaluated to set the initial value of the attribute for the object.

Operations of a Class can be invoked on an object, given a particular set of values for the parameters of the Operation, (...).

A Class cannot access private Features of another Class, or protected Features on another Class that is not its ancestor.

A Class acts as the namespace for various kinds of Classifiers defined within its scope, including Classes. Nested Classifiers are members of the namespace of the containing Class. Classifier nesting is used for reasons of information hiding.