A Framework Based on Design Patterns: Implementing UML Association, Aggregation and Composition Relationships in the Context of Model-Driven Code Generation

Abstract

This chapter proposes a framework based on design patterns to implement UML association, aggregation, and composition relationships. To build the framework, we propose a semantic interpretation of these concepts that avoids the ambiguities introduced by UML. This interpretation is achieved by using a set of properties that allows us to characterize these kinds of relationships. Once the semantics of the relationships have been defined, we propose a framework based on design patterns for the systematic generation of a software representation. The framework is based on the properties that characterize the relationships. It provides a high-quality solution and introduces important benefits with regard to other existing implementation approaches. This work proposes an implementation strategy that defines a set of mappings between the conceptual abstractions and the proposed framework. This strategy enables the automatic instantiation of the framework. Finally, to validate the proposal, we present a C# implementation of a collaboration pattern. Collaboration patterns are analysis patterns constituted by two classes that are related by an association, an aggregation or a composition relationship.