Recovering binary class relationships: putting icing on the UML cake

ABSTRACT

A discontinuity exists between object-oriented modeling and programming languages. This discontinuity arises from ambiguous concepts in modeling languages and a lack of corresponding concepts in programming languages. It is particularly acute for binary class relationships---association, aggregation, and composition. It hinders the traceability between software implementation and design, thus hampering software analysis. We propose consensual definitions of the binary class relationships with four minimal properties---exclusivity, invocation site, lifetime, and multiplicity. We describe algorithms to detect automatically these properties in source code and apply these on several frameworks. Thus, we bridge the gap between implementation and design for the binary class relationships, easing software analysis.

REFERENCES

• 1: Martin Abadi , Luca Cardelli, A Theory of Objects, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., Secaucus, NJ, 1996
• 2: Hervé Albin-Amiot , Pierre Cointe , Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc , Narendra Jussien, Instantiating and Detecting Design Patterns: Putting Bits and Pieces Together, Proceedings of the 16th IEEE international conference on Automated software engineering, p.166, November 26-29, 2001
• 3: Hervé Albin-Amiot and Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc. Meta-modeling design patterns: Application to pattern detection and code synthesis. In Bedir Tekinerdogan, Pim Van Den Broek, Motoshi Saeki, Pavel Hruby, and Gerson Sunyé, editors, proceedings of the 1st ECOOP workshop on Automating Object-Oriented Software Development Methods. Centre for Telematics and Information Technology, University of Twente, October 2001. TR-CTIT-01-35.
• 4: Pascal André, Annya Romanczuk, Jean-Claude Royer, and Aline Vasconcelos. An algebraic view of UML class diagrams. In Christophe Dony and Houari Sahraoui, editors, proceedings of the 6th colloquium on Languages and Models with Objects, pages 261--276. Hermès Science Publications, January 2000.
• 5: G. Ardourel , M. Huchard, AGATE, Access Graph-Based Tools for Handling Encapsulation, Proceedings of the 16th IEEE international conference on Automated software engineering, p.311, November 26-29, 2001
• 6: Boris Beizer, Software testing techniques (2nd ed.), Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, NY, 1990
• 7: Juan C. Bicarregui, Kevin C. Lano, and Tom S. E. Maibuam. Objects, associations and subsystems: A hierarchical approach to encapsulation. In Mehmet Aksit and Satoshi Matsuoka, editors, proceedings of 11th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, pages 324--343. Springer-Verlag, June 1997.
• 8: Edwin H. Blake , Steve Cook, On Including Part Hierarchies in Object-Oriented Languages with an Implementation in Smalltalk, Proceedings of the European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, p.41-50, June 15-17, 1987
• 9: Grady Booch, Object oriented design with applications, Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Co., Inc., Redwood City, CA, 1990
• 10: Ruth Breu, Ursula Hinkel, Christoph Hofmann, Cornel Klein, Barbara Paech, Bernhard Rumpe, and Veronika Thurner. Towards a formalization of the unifed modeling language. In Mehmet Aksit and Satoshi Matsuoka, editors, proceedings of the 11th European Conference for Object-Oriented Programming, pages 344--366. Springer-Verlag, June 1997.
• 11: Jean-Michel Bruel, Brian Henderson-Sellers, Franck Barbier, Annig Le Parc, and Robert B. France. Improving the UML metamodel to rigorously specify aggregation and composition. In Shushma Patel, Yingxu Wang, and Ronald H. Johnston, editors, proceedings of the 7th international conference on Object-Oriented Information Systems, pages 5--14. Springer-Verlag, August 2001.
• 12: M. Ajmal Chaumun , Hind Kabaili , Rudolf K. Keller , François Lustman , Guy Saint-Denis, Design Properties and Object-Oriented Software Changeability, Proceedings of the Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering, p.45, February 29-March 03, 2000
• 13: Shyam R. Chidamber and Chris F. Kemerer. A metrics suite for object-oriented design. Technical Report E53-315, MIT Sloan School of Management, December 1993.
• 14: Franco Civello, Roles for composite objects in object-oriented analysis and design, Proceedings of the eighth annual conference on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications, p.376-393, September 26-October 01, 1993, Washington, D.C., United States
• 15: L. A. Clarke , A. Podgurski , D. J. Richardson , S. J. Zeil, A Formal Evaluation of Data Flow Path Selection Criteria, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.15 n.11, p.1318-1332, November 1989 [doi>10.1109/32.41326]
• 16: S. Ducasse , M. Blay-Fornarino , A. M. Pinna-Dery, A reflective model for first class dependencies, Proceedings of the tenth annual conference on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications, p.265-280, October 15-19, 1995, Austin, Texas, United States
• 17: Erich Gamma and Kent Beck. Test infected: Programmers love writing tests. Java Report, 3(7):37--50, July 1998.
• 18: Erich Gamma and Thomas Eggenschwiler. JHotDraw. Web site, 1998.
• 19: Erich Gamma , Richard Helm , Ralph Johnson , John Vlissides, Design patterns: elements of reusable object-oriented software, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1995
• 20: Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc , Hervé Albin-Amiot, Using Design Patterns and Constraints to Automate the Detection and Correction of Inter-Class Design Defects, Proceedings of the 39th International Conference and Exhibition on Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems (TOOLS39), p.296, July 29-August 03, 2001
• 21: Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc, Hervé Albin-Amiot, Rémi Douence, and Pierre Cointe. Bridging the gap between modeling and programming languages. Technical Report 02/09/INFO, Computer Science Department, école des Mines de Nantes, July 2002.
• 22: Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc , Rémi Douence , Narendra Jussien, No Java without Caffeine: A Tool for Dynamic Analysis of Java Programs, Proceedings of the 17th IEEE international conference on Automated software engineering, p.117, September 23-27, 2002
• 23: William Harrison , Charles Barton , Mukund Raghavachari, Mapping UML designs to Java, Proceedings of the 15th ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications, p.178-187, October 2000, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
• 24: Thorsten Hartmann , Ralf Jungclaus , Gunter Saake, Aggregation in a Behaviour Oriented Object Model, Proceedings of the European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, p.57-77, June 29-July 03, 1992
• 25: B. Henderson-Sellers, Some Problems with the UML V1.3 Metamodel, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences ( HICSS-34)-Volume 3, p.3052, January 03-06, 2001
• 26: Brian Henderson-Sellers and Franck Barbier. A survey of the UML's aggregation and composition relationships. L'objet : Logiciel, Base de données, Réseaux, 5(3/4):339--366, December 1999.
• 27: Daniel Jackson , Allison Waingold, Lightweight extraction of object models from bytecode, Proceedings of the 21st international conference on Software engineering, p.194-202, May 16-22, 1999, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/302405.302465]
• 28: Ralf Kollmann , Martin Gogolla, Application of UML Associations and Their Adornments in Design Recovery, Proceedings of the Eighth Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE'01), p.81, October 02-05, 2001
• 29: Christian Kramer , Lutz Prechelt, Design Recovery by Automated Search for Structural Design Patterns in Object-Oriented Software, Proceedings of the 3rd Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE '96), p.208, November 08-10, 1996
• 30: Bent Bruun Kristensen, Complex associations: abstractions in object-oriented modeling, Proceedings of the ninth annual conference on Object-oriented programming systems, language, and applications, p.272-286, October 23-28, 1994, Portland, Oregon, United States
• 31: Esperanza Marcos, Belen Vela, José M. Cavero, and Paloma Cáceres. Aggregation and composition in object-Relational database design. In Albertas Caplinskas and Johann Eder, editors, proceedings of the 5th east-european conference on Advances in Databases and Information Systems, pages 195--209. Springer-Verlag, September 2001.
• 32: James Noble and John Grundy. Explicit relationships in object-oriented development. In Bertrand Meyer, editor, proceedings of the 18th conference on the Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems, pages 211--226. Prentice-Hall, November 1995.
• 33: James Rumbaugh , Michael Blaha , William Premerlani , Frederick Eddy , William Lorensen, Object-oriented modeling and design, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1991
• 34: Monika Saksena, Robert B. France, and Maria M. Larrondo-Petrie. A characterization of aggregation. In Colette Rolland, editor, proceedings of the 5th international conference on Object-Oriented Information Systems, pages 363--372. Springer-Verlag, September 1998.
• 35: Pamela Samuelson, Reverse engineering under siege, Communications of the ACM, v.45 n.10, October 2002 [doi>10.1145/570907.570919]
• 36: Elliot Soloway , Robin Lampert , Stan Letovsky , David Littman , Jeannine Pinto, Designing documentation to compensate for delocalized plans, Communications of the ACM, v.31 n.11, p.1259-1267, Nov. 1988 [doi>10.1145/50087.50088]
• 37: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Java Abstract Window Toolkit, May 2000.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.1 PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES
      D.1.5 Object-oriented Programming

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Languages
      D.2.7 Distribution, Maintenance, and Enhancement
          Subjects: Restructuring, reverse engineering, and reengineering

Keywords:
UML, binary class relationships, consensual definitions, design-implementation discontinuity, detection algorithms, formalisations, java, minimal properties