The Unified Modeling Language User Guide SECOND EDITION [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Terms and Concepts

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artifact diagram shows a set of artifacts and their relationships. Graphically, a artifact diagram is a collection of vertices and arcs.

Common Properties

An artifact diagram is just a special usage of diagram that shares the same common properties as do all other diagramsa name and graphical contents that are a projection into a model. What distinguishes an artifact diagram from all other kinds of diagrams is its particular content.

Contents

Artifact diagrams commonly contain

• Artifacts

• Dependency, generalization, association, and realization relationships

Like all other diagrams, artifact diagrams may contain notes and constraints.

Common Uses

You use artifact diagrams to model the static implementation view of a system. This view primarily supports the configuration management of a system's parts, made up of artifacts that can be assembled in various ways to produce a running system.

When you model the static implementation view of a system, you'll typically use artifact diagrams in one of four ways.

1. To model source code

With most contemporary object-oriented programming languages, you'll cut code using integrated development environments that store your source code in files. You can use artifact diagrams to model the configuration of these files, which represent work-product artifacts, and to set up your configuration management system.

2. To model executable releases

A release is a relatively complete and consistent set of artifacts delivered to an internal or external user. In the context of artifacts, a release focuses on the parts necessary to deliver a running system. When you model a release using artifact diagrams, you are visualizing, specifying, and documenting the decisions about the physical parts that constitute your softwarethat is, its deployment artifacts.

3. To model physical databases

Think of a physical database as the concrete realization of a schema living in the world of bits. Schemas, in effect, offer an API to persistent information; the model of a physical database represents the storage of that information in the tables of a relational database or the pages of an object-oriented database. You use artifact diagrams to represent these and other kinds of physical databases.

4. To model adaptable systems

Some systems are quite static; their artifacts enter the scene, participate in an execution, and then depart. Other systems are more dynamic, involving mobile agents or artifacts that migrate for purposes of load balancing and failure recovery. You use artifact diagrams in conjunction with some of the UML's diagrams for modeling behavior to represent these kinds of systems.