N-ary Relations of Association in Class Diagrams: Design Patterns

Most of the technology of object-oriented development relies on the use of UML diagrams, in particular, class diagrams. CASE tools, used for automation of object-oriented development, often do not support n-ary associations in the class diagrams, and their implementation in the form of program code in contrast to binary rather time-consuming. The article will show how in some cases it is possible to move from the n-ary association between classes to binary and how can reduce the number of objects. The rules to transform models, that contain n-ary association, will be presented in the form of design patterns. Proposed three new design patterns can be used in the process of developing software systems. These patterns describe transformations of n-ary (often ternary) associations occur between classes in binary and the introduction of additional classes and binary association with the aim of optimizing the model.

@article{Maxim2016,
  title     = {N-ary Relations of Association in Class Diagrams: Design Patterns},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {7},
  number    = {2},
  year      = {2016},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Sergievskiy Maxim},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2016.070237},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2016.070237}
}