Guidelines: Use-Case Realization
Topics
A use-case realization represents how a use case will be implemented in terms
of collaborating objects. This artifact can take various forms. It may include,
for example, a textual description (a document), class diagrams of participating
classes and subsystems, and interaction diagrams (communication and sequence
diagrams) that illustrate the flow of interactions between class and subsystem
instances.
In a model, a use-case realization is represented as a UML collaboration that
groups the diagrams and other information (such as textual descriptions) that
form part of the use-case realization.
The reason for separating the use-case realization from its use case is that
doing so allows the use cases to be managed separately from their realizations.
This is particularly important for larger projects, or families of systems where
the same use cases may be designed differently in different products within the
product family. Consider the case of a family of telephone switches which have
many use cases in common, but which design and implement them differently
according to product positioning, performance and price.
For larger projects, separating the use case and its realization allows
changes to the design of the use case without affecting the baselined use case
itself.
For each use case in the use-case model, there is a use-case realization in
the analysis/design model with a realization relationship to the use case. In
the UML this is shown as a dashed arrow, with an arrowhead like a generalization
relationship, indicating that a realization is a kind of inheritance, as well
as a dependency (i.e. it could have been shown as a dependency stereotyped with
<<realize>>).
A use-case realization in the analysis/design model can
be traced to a use case in the use-case model.
For each use-case realization there may be one or more class diagrams
depicting its participating classes. The figure below shows a class diagram for
the realization of the Receive Deposit Item use case. A class
and its objects often participate in several use-case realizations. It is
important during design to coordinate all the requirements on a class and its
objects that different use-case realizations may have.
The use case Receive Deposit Item and its class diagram.
For each use-case realization there is one or more interaction diagrams
depicting its participating objects and their interactions. There are two types
of interaction diagrams: Sequence diagrams and communication diagrams. They
express similar information, but show it in different ways. Sequence diagrams
show the explicit sequence of messages and are better when it is important to
visualize the time ordering of messages, whereas communication diagrams show
the communication links between objects and are better for understanding all of
the effects on a given object and for algorithm design. See Guidelines:
Sequence Diagram and Guidelines: Communication
Diagram below for more information.
|