Introducing variations points

[MagnusH]

Hi,

Do you have any suggestion how variability can be expressed in a good way in the tool/UML?

An example to explain the question. I have a UML component that models a set of C files. In the files I have a #ifdef ENABLE_BLUETOOTH. I want to show this in the UML model, i.e. in the component, in order to highlight that this component can be built with or without support for Bluetooth.

Thank,
Magnus

[Geert Bellekens]

Why don't you add an attribute "Bluetooth_enabled" of type boolean to your component.
If you then model instances of this component you can set the "Run State" of the component filling in the "Bluetoot_enabled" attribute with true or false.
This way you can visually see the difference between a deployment with or without bluetooth support.

Geert

[MagnusH]

Thanks for your answer. Funny that we internally discussed the same solution as you propose. The conclusion must be that this is the ultimate way of doing this  

// Magnus

[Geert Bellekens]

I think this is one of those: There is more then one correct answer cases. Whether it is "ultimate" I dare not say, but it is certainly acceptable.

Geert