Multiobject on Collaboration(Cooperation) diagram

[JackOfShadows]

Many tools represent set of anonymous objects of the same type (collection) on the collaboration diagram as one rectangle over another (like this: http://www.comptechdoc.org/independent/uml/begin/collaboration.gif). Is there the same feature in the Enterprise Architect 5.0? I couldn't find it there.

[thomaskilian]

AFAIK this is not UML compliant. I remeber having read a similar post recently but can't find it. However EA does not support this.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

AFAIK this is not UML compliant. I remember having read a similar post recently but can't find it. However EA does not support this.

Jack,

Thomas is spot on, but here I believe, so is EA.  If you go to the site, the last statement says:

Messages to multiobjects - The message is to the container, not the object in the container. (add, find, remove, next, size, contains)

Perhaps you need the container (or collection) and the included items as separate things each doing their appropriate thing.

It seems passing strange to me to pictorially represent something and then contradict it in the narrative (if I've understood it correctly).  Better to have the diagrammatic and narrative semantics match?

Just a thought,
Paolo

[JackOfShadows]

Thank you :)
I haven't found such notation in UML 1.5 specification too, but in Rational Rose I've used it and it is now part of the style of collaboration diagrams in our company. I see no disadvantages in such notaion. It is only very usefull symbol. :) Main idea of visual modeling is to create pictures to visualize modeling enteties. For most usefull stereotypes we create picture as in this case :)

PS: sorry for my English :)