Artifact (UML)

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Artifact manifesting components UML Artifact.PNG
Artifact manifesting components

An artifact in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the specification of a physical piece of information that is used or produced by a software development process, or by deployment and operation of a system." [1]

Unified Modeling Language general-purpose, developmental, modeling language in the field of software engineering

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose, developmental, modeling language in the field of software engineering that is intended to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system.

In software engineering, a software development process is the process of dividing software development work into distinct phases to improve design, product management, and project management. It is also known as a software development life cycle. The methodology may include the pre-definition of specific deliverables and artifacts that are created and completed by a project team to develop or maintain an application.

Examples of artifacts include model files, source files, scripts, and binary executable files, a table in a database system, a development deliverable, a word-processing document, or a mail message. [1]

In computing, source code is any collection of code, possibly with comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source code. The source code is often transformed by an assembler or compiler into binary machine code understood by the computer. The machine code might then be stored for execution at a later time. Alternatively, source code may be interpreted and thus immediately executed.

A table is a collection of related data held in a table format within a database. It consists of columns, and rows.

A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought. a document is a form, or written piece that trains a line of thought or as in history, a significant event. The word originates from the Latin documentum, which denotes a "teaching" or "lesson": the verb doceō denotes "to teach". In the past, the word was usually used to denote a written proof useful as evidence of a truth or fact. In the computer age, "document" usually denotes a primarily textual computer file, including its structure and format, e.g. fonts, colors, and images. Contemporarily, "document" is not defined by its transmission medium, e.g., paper, given the existence of electronic documents. "Documentation" is distinct because it has more denotations than "document". Documents are also distinguished from "realia", which are three-dimensional objects that would otherwise satisfy the definition of "document" because they memorialize or represent thought; documents are considered more as 2 dimensional representations. While documents are able to have large varieties of customization, all documents are able to be shared freely, and have the right to do so, creativity can be represented by documents, also. History, events, examples, opinion, etc. all can be expressed in documents.

Artifacts are the physical entities that are deployed on Nodes (i.e. Devices and Execution Environments). Other UML elements such as classes and components are first manifested into artifacts and instances of these artifacts are then deployed. Artifacts can also be composed of other artifacts.

Node (UML)

A node in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a computational resource upon which UML artifacts may be deployed for execution.

See also

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UXF

In computing, UML eXchange Format (UXF) is a XML-based model interchange format for Unified Modeling Language (UML), which is a standard software modeling language. UXF is a structured format described in 1998 and intended to encode, publish, access and exchange UML models.

Model-driven architecture (MDA) is a software design approach for the development of software systems. It provides a set of guidelines for the structuring of specifications, which are expressed as models. Model-driven architecture is a kind of domain engineering, and supports model-driven engineering of software systems. It was launched by the Object Management Group (OMG) in 2001.

Round-trip engineering (RTE) is a functionality of software development tools that synchronizes two or more related software artifacts, such as, source code, models, configuration files, and even documentation. The need for round-trip engineering arises when the same information is present in multiple artifacts and therefore an inconsistency may occur if not all artifacts are consistently updated to reflect a given change. For example, some piece of information was added to/changed in only one artifact and, as a result, it became missing in/inconsistent with the other artifacts.

Sequence diagram

A sequence diagram shows object interactions arranged in time sequence. It depicts the objects and classes involved in the scenario and the sequence of messages exchanged between the objects needed to carry out the functionality of the scenario. Sequence diagrams are typically associated with use case realizations in the Logical View of the system under development. Sequence diagrams are sometimes called event diagrams or event scenarios.

A UML tool is a software application that supports some or all of the notation and semantics associated with the Unified Modeling Language (UML), which is the industry standard general-purpose modeling language for software engineering.

Deployment diagram

A deployment diagram in the Unified Modeling Language models the physical deployment of artifacts on nodes. To describe a web site, for example, a deployment diagram would show what hardware components ("nodes") exist, what software components ("artifacts") run on each node, and how the different pieces are connected.

Package diagram

A package diagram in the Unified Modeling Language depicts the dependencies between the packages that make up a model.

Component diagram

In Unified Modeling Language (UML), a component diagram depicts how components are wired together to form larger components or software systems. They are used to illustrate the structure of arbitrarily complex systems.

Activity diagram diagram that models activity and process flows

Activity diagrams are graphical representations of workflows of stepwise activities and actions with support for choice, iteration and concurrency. In the Unified Modeling Language, activity diagrams are intended to model both computational and organizational processes, as well as the data flows intersecting with the related activities. Although activity diagrams primarily show the overall flow of control, they can also include elements showing the flow of data between activities through one or more data stores.

System Architect software

Unicom System Architect is an enterprise architecture tool that is used by the business and technology departments of corporations and government agencies to model their business operations and the systems, applications, and databases that support them. System Architect is used to build architectures using various frameworks including TOGAF, ArchiMate, DoDAF, MODAF and NAF. System Architect is developed by UNICOM Systems, a division of UNICOM Global, a United States-based company.

UML Partners was a consortium of system integrators and vendors convened in 1996 to specify the Unified Modeling Language (UML). Initially the consortium was led by Grady Booch, Ivar Jacobson, and James Rumbaugh of Rational Software. The UML Partners' UML 1.0 specification draft was proposed to the Object Management Group (OMG) in January 1997. During the same month the UML Partners formed a Semantics Task Force, chaired by Cris Kobryn, to finalize the semantics of the specification and integrate it with other standardization efforts. The result of this work, UML 1.1, was submitted to the OMG in August 1997 and adopted by the OMG in November 1997.

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MagicDraw

MagicDraw is a visual UML, SysML, BPMN, and UPDM modeling tool with team collaboration support. Designed for business analysts, software analysts, programmers, and QA engineers, this dynamic and versatile development tool facilitates analysis and design of object oriented (OO) systems and databases. It provides the code engineering mechanism, as well as database schema modeling, DDL generation and reverse engineering facilities.

Package (UML) group of elements in UML

A package in the Unified Modeling Language is used "to group elements, and to provide a namespace for the grouped elements". A package may contain other packages, thus providing for a hierarchical organization of packages.

Hans-Erik Eriksson is a Swedish computer scientist, organizational theorist, co-founder of Open Training AB, and author, known for his 2000 work on "Business modeling with UML."

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