In UML class diagrams what are Boundary Classes Control Classes and Entity Classes

Question

I m now using NetBeans as my IDE-of-choice  and it has a plugin for UML modeling  In the class diagram  there are model elements known as Boundary Class  Control Class  and Entity Class  However  I can t find a good definition of them  but I did find this site on UML Class Diagrams

User · Answer

These are class stereotypes used in analysis.

boundary classes are ones at the boundary of the system - the classes that you or other systems interact with
entity classes classes are your typical business entities like "person" and "bank account"
control classes implement some business logic or other

User · Answer

Robustness diagrams are written after use cases and before class diagrams  They help to identify the roles of use case steps  You can use them to ensure your use cases are sufficiently robust to represent usage requirements for the system you re building   They involve    Actors Use Cases Entities Boundaries Controls   Whereas the Model-View-Controller pattern is used for user interfaces  the Entity-Control-Boundary Pattern  ECB  is used for systems  The following aspects of ECB can be likened to an abstract version of MVC  if that s helpful     Entities  model  Objects representing system data  often from the domain model   Boundaries   view service collaborator  Objects that interface with system actors  e g  a user or external service   Windows  screens and menus are examples of boundaries that interface with users   Controls  controller  Objects that mediate between boundaries and entities  These serve as the glue between boundary elements and entity elements  implementing the logic required to manage the various elements and their interactions  It is important to understand that you may decide to implement controllers within your design as something other than objects     many controllers are simple enough to be implemented as a method of an entity or boundary class for example   Four rules apply to their communication    Actors can only talk to boundary objects  Boundary objects can only talk to controllers and actors  Entity objects can only talk to controllers  Controllers can talk to boundary objects and entity objects  and to other controllers  but not to actors   Communication allowed              Entity    Boundary   Control Entity     X                     X Boundary                         X Control    X          X          X

User · Answer

Actually  the Robustness Diagrams  or Analysis Diagrams  as they are sometimes called  are just specialized Class Diagrams   They are a part of UML  and have been from the beginning  see Jacobson s book  The Unified Software Development Process - part of the  Three Amigos  series of books    The aforementioned book has a good definition of these three classes on pp 183-185

User · Answer

Boundary Control Entity pattern have two versions  - old structural  described at 127  entity as an data model elements  control as an functions  boundary as an application interface  - new object pattern  As an object pattern  - Boundary is an interface for  other world   - Control in an any internal logic  like a service in DDD pattern  - Entity is an an persistence serwis for objects  like a repository in DDD pattern   All classes have operations  see Fowler anemic domain model anti-pattern    All of them is an Model component in MVC pattern  The rules  - Only Boundary provide services for the  other world  - Boundary can call only to Controll - Control can call anybody - Entity can t call anybody      only be called   jz

User · Answer

Often used with as a part of OOAD and business modeling   The definition by Neil is correct  but it is basically identical to MVC  but just abstracted for the business   The  Good summary  is well done so I will not copy it here as it is not my work  more detailed but inline with Neil s bullet points   Good summary - Conceito  Entity-Control-Boundary Pattern  OOAD

[uml] In UML class diagrams, what are Boundary Classes, Control Classes, and Entity Classes?

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