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Design Patterns Explained

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CHAPTER 2<br />

The UML— The Unified<br />

Modeling Language<br />

Overview<br />

This chapter gives a brief overview of the Unified Modeling Language<br />

(UML), which is the modeling language of the object-oriented community.<br />

If you do not already know the UML, this chapter will give<br />

you the minimal understanding you will need to be able to read the<br />

diagrams contained in this book.<br />

In this chapter,<br />

• I describe what the UML is and why to use it.<br />

• I discuss the UML diagrams that are essential to this book:<br />

- The Class Diagram<br />

- The Interaction Diagram<br />

What Is the UML?<br />

The UML is a visual language (meaning a drawing notation with<br />

semantics) used to create models of programs. By models of<br />

pro-grams, I mean a diagrammatic representation of the programs<br />

in which one can see the relationships between the objects in the<br />

code.<br />

The UML has several different diagrams — some for analysis, others<br />

for design, and still others for implementation (or more accurately,<br />

In this chapter<br />

UML offers many<br />

kinds of modeling<br />

diagrams

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