Package diagrams
In the Unified Modeling Language(UML), a package diagram depicts how a system is split up into logical groupings by showing the dependencies among these groupings. As a package is typically thought of as a directory, package diagrams provide a logical hierarchical decomposition of a system. |
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| Packages are usually organized to maximize internal coherence within each package and to minimize external coupling among packages. With these guidelines in place, the packages are good management elements. Each package can be assigned to an individual or team, and the dependencies among them indicate the required development order. |
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| Package diagrams are used to reflect the organization of packages and their elements. When used to represent class elements, package diagrams provide a visualization of the namespaces. The most common use for package diagrams is to organize use case diagrams and class diagrams, although the use of package diagrams is not limited to these UML elements. |
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| Packages are represented in UML 2.1 as folders and contain the elements that share a namespace; all elements within a package must be identifiable, and so have a unique name or type. The package must show the package name and can optionally show the elements within the package in extra compartments. |
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| 1. Package Merge |
| A «merge» connector between two packages defines an implicit generalization between elements in the source package, and elements with the same name in the target package. The source element definitions are expanded to include the element definitions contained in the target. The target element definitions are unaffected, as are the definitions of source package elements that don’t match names with any element in the target package. |
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| 2. Package Import |
| The «import» connector indicates that the elements within the target package, which in this example is a single class, use unqualified names when being referred to from the source package. The source package’s namespace gains access to the target classes; the target’s namespace is not affected. |
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| 3. Nesting Connectors |
| The nesting connector between the target package and source packages shows that the source package is fully contained in the target package. |