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componentsumldiagram
Migs Zuniga
Migs Zuniga

Reputation: 51

Components in Component Diagram UML

I am very confused on what are these "components" should be. I am just starting with UML by the way. I don't know what components should be used or be place in the diagram. I've searched for definitions about these components and they are very hard to understand. Can you please explain it in a very simple way on what these components should be?

P.S.: This component diagram will be about a website. A planner website.

I can't post what I had in mind because I am a new user and new users aren't allowed to post images.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 1387

Answers (1)

Mike G
Mike G

Reputation: 756

The way I think of them is as a large, logical, chunk of the functionality of a system; a bit like that which might be found in a single library or a .jar file. They tend to be associated more with software intensive systems distributed over multiple nodes (computers) and locations. They idea is that they interact, mainly, through well defined interfaces and that they can be replaced or "swapped out" with another component that will do the same job. An example would be changing to a different database management system, or updating some hardware drivers.

Components are used most in component and sequence diagrams.

I believe there is a debate as to what the real the differences between components and classes are. Both are specialisations of the concept of a classifier in UML

In your case —without knowing much about the specifics— you might have the following components with interfaces between them:

  1. a web client component
  2. a business/problem logic component or components
  3. some sort of data management component.

At the end of the day though, you use the UML in whatever way works for you. A simple software project might not benefit at all from using component diagrams. It's up to each project team to define what context and level of abstraction they are working at and choose diagram types accordingly.

Upvotes: 2

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