Component Diagrams

After a while, clusters of classes that strongly interact and form a unit will start to peel out from the architecture. To express this, the corresponding clusters can be represented as components. If taken far enough, this can lead to a highly reusable component architecture. But such an architecture is hard to design from scratch and usually evolves over time. As mentioned above, component diagrams are, like object diagrams, edited with the deployment diagram editor; therefore, the corresponding model elements are explained in that section.

Figure 10-8. A Component diagram.

Diagram Elements

Toolbar

Select

Node

Instance of a Node

Component

Instance of a Component

Dependency

Class

Interface As Circle

Lollipop

Socket

Association

Directed Association

Aggregation

Composition

Association Class

Object

Link

Comment

Connect Comment to Element

Text

Circle

Rectangle

Polygon

Polyline

Repaint