CODEWITHSUNDEEP
umlcomponent-diagram
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RAM

Reputation: 2749

Multiple component diagrams of the same system?

I'm working on a component diagram of a system and due to the system's design quite a few dependency lines end up crossing, which makes the diagram hard to read and hard to follow.

One way to side-step this issue would be to use separate component diagrams to illustrate how a subset of the system's components depend on some component/interface. For example, the dependency on a data store would be represented in a component diagram which covers only the data stores and the components which directly access those datastores, omitting the remaining components. However, I'm not sure this is considered standard practice or even acceptable.

Does anyone know if it's ok to present multiple component diagrams of the same system? If not, what other alternatives are available to avoid cluttering the diagram?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 639

Answers (2)

Murray Foxcroft
Murray Foxcroft

Reputation: 13745

Different views are a common way to simplify complexity in diagrams. However, the desire for multiple diagrams is possibly a bit of a smell that you have too much complexity in the system you are trying to model.

Consider moving up a level up from component diagrams to package diagrams in order to help lay out the bigger picture. This should help you to organize your system in to a set of well organized sub systems. For each sub-system you can then drill down back to the detailed component diagrams.

Upvotes: 2

Geert Bellekens
Geert Bellekens

Reputation: 13701

Yes, that is the standard practice. Only the most trivial systems are small enough to be represented in a single diagram.

Upvotes: 4

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