Class Diagrams

A class diagram is a UML diagram that provides a graphical view of the classes, interfaces, and packages that compose a system, and the relationships between them.

Note: To create a class diagram in an existing OOM, right-click the model in the Browser and select New > Class Diagram. To create a new model, select File > New Model, choose Object Oriented Model as the model type and Class Diagram as the first diagram, and then click OK.

You build a class diagram to simplify the interaction of objects in the system you are modeling. Class diagrams express the static structure of a system in terms of classes and relationships between those classes. A class describes a set of objects, and an association describes a set of links; objects are class instances, and links are association instances.

A class diagram does not express anything specific about the links of a given object, but it describes, in an abstract way, the potential link from an object to other objects.

The following example shows an analysis of the structure of peripherals in a class diagram: