plantuml--Simple and fast UML editing software for Eclipse

plantuml--Simple and fast UML editing software for Eclipse

Introduction: in the application system software development process, if the software is composed of many objects, its structure is difficult to clarify by virtue of analysis, at the same time in order to facilitate the development and reuse of software, so in the development of the system before the modeling is very necessary, in a number of modeling methods to choose one to adapt to their own application characteristics, The modeling method that facilitates people to communicate with different backgrounds has become an urgent aspiration of developers and users. UML is a common and unified graphic model language in object-oriented software development, and it is an effective tool for the specification, visualization and modeling of software system. This paper introduces a simple and fast UML editing software--PLANTUML,PLANTUML is a Java class library used to draw UML diagrams. Supported UML diagrams include: Timing diagrams, use case diagrams, class diagrams, Component diagrams, activity diagrams, and more. PLANTUML can help developers to build and edit UML, which has a good application prospect.

Release Date: July 05, 2012
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With the rapid development of computer technology, object-oriented software development technology has developed rapidly and has been widely used in object-oriented analysis, design technology and object-oriented programming language has obtained rich research results, object-oriented approach occupies a leading position. Unified Modeling Language UML (Unified Modeling Language, abbreviated as UML) is a common and unified graphic model language in object-oriented software development, and is an effective tool for the specification, visualization and modeling of software systems. He has been absorbed by international standards organizations as an international standard in the field of software modelling. UML integrates the new ideas, new methods and new technologies in the field of software technology, not only can support object-oriented analysis and design, more importantly, it can support the whole process of software development starting from requirement analysis. UML-based design and development process has been more and more widely concerned, UML in object-oriented analysis and design shows its strong vitality. This paper introduces a simple and fast UML editing software-PLANTUML,PLANTUML is a Java class library used to draw UML diagrams. Supported UML diagrams include: Timing diagrams, use case diagrams, class diagrams, Component diagrams, activity diagrams, and more. PLANTUML can help developers to build and edit UML, which has a good application prospect.

Introduction to UML

Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a common visual modeling language used to describe, visualize, construct, and build software-system artifacts. UML combines the basic concepts and representation symbols of BOOCH, OMT, Oose and other methods, and dissolves into the method of software engineering, which is a general-purpose, easy-to-Express and powerful visualization modeling language. UML, which was accepted by the International Standards Organization (OMG) as the official standard in 1997, has become the fact standard of the new generation object-oriented software design, and its use with the Rational Unified process has been adopted by many enterprises in the industry. UML provides a set of concepts and graphical representations of software system models, and software developers can use UML to build a visual model of complex object-oriented software systems, and to control the entire software development process from design, coding, testing to documentation through incremental and continuous refinement.

UML is independent of programming language, the model built by UML can be implemented by using C++,java and any other object-oriented programming language. In addition, UML has the following advantages: UML combines the advantages of BOOCH, OMT, Oose and other methods, provides the standard object-oriented model element definition and representation method, can indirectly express the various object-oriented concepts and model elements. UML is a kind of graphic language, which has strong visibility and strong representation ability. In addition, UML is independent of the development process, can be used in conjunction with a variety of development processes, has a wide range of applicability. Finally, UML is easy to use and provides detailed documentation for developers and users.

UML consists of views, diagrams, model elements, and general mechanisms. The view is a subset of UML modeling elements used to express the characteristics of a system, consisting of multiple graphs, which is an abstract representation of the system at an abstraction level. A graph is a graphical representation of a set of model elements. Model elements represent concepts such as classes, objects, messages, and relationships in object-oriented objects, and are the most basic common concepts for composing diagrams. Generic mechanisms are used to represent additional information. In addition, UML has things, relationships and figure three basic building blocks. The object is the final result of the abstraction of the entity, and the model is the basic member; The relation is the way of connecting things together; the graph is the classification of the object collection.

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Installation and configuration of PLANTUML

PLANTUML supports installation on multiple platforms, such as the Eclipse,netbeans,oneline servlet, which also supports editing in multiple languages, such as c/c++,php,java,html. Users can download the necessary documents from the official website of PLANTUML. Http://plantuml.sourceforge.net/download.html.

The following is a brief introduction to the installation and configuration of the PLANTUML as an example of the Eclipse development operations platform.

1. Download Update plantuml Eclipse plugin, open eclipse,help-> Install new software ....

   Fill in the appropriate URL:

   http://basar.idi.ntnu.no/svn/tdt4100/anonymous/trunk/updatesite/

   http://plantuml.sourceforge.net/updatesite/

   
   
   Figure 1. Download Install PLANTUML Plugin
   
   
   
2. After the download installation is successful, restart Eclipse. will see the plantuml icon in Windows->show view->other.
   
   Figure 2. PLANTUML icon successfully displayed
   
   
   

   Users can also download the appropriate Plantuml.jar files for manual installation.

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Examples of use of PLANTUML

Users can use PLANTUML to generate different views based on different needs. The operation is very simple and convenient.

Figure 3. PLANTUML operator Interface

The following article describes the various views generated by the application PLANTUML using the actual syntax examples.

Timing Diagram

Sequence diagrams, also known as sequential or sequential plots, are UML behavior diagrams. It shows the dynamic collaboration between multiple objects by describing the chronological order in which messages are sent between objects. It can represent the sequence of behavior of a use case, and when a routine is performed, each message in a sequence diagram corresponds to a class operation or trigger event that causes a transition in the state machine.

Syntax Examples:

@startuml title Sequence Diagram Example actor Tester1 #red actor Tester2 #Yellow Tester1-Tester2 : Send Request Tester2-Tester1: Reply request

Figure 4. Time Series Diagram View

Use case diagram

Use case diagrams-diagrams that consist of the protagonists, use cases, and the relationships between them.

Syntax Examples:

@startuml : admin: As admin << admin >> (application) as (use) Tester1---(start) Tester2--(Us e) Admin---> (use) Note right of admin: Administrator status note left of (use) realizes Notes Domino's function end note Note "Test Test personnel for testing work "as user (start): User user. (use)

Figure 5. Use case Diagram view

Class diagram

Class diagram-Shows the static structure of the model, especially the classes that exist in the model, the internal structure of the classes, and their relationships to other classes.

Syntax Examples:

@startuml skinparam classattributeiconsize class Test << main function >> { -function1 + Function2 #Function3 ~function4 ~method1 () +method2 () #method3 () ~method4 () } Test <|--Test2 Test1 o--Test2

Figure 6. Class Diagram View

Activity Chart

Activity diagram-illustrates the workflow of business use case implementations. The business use case workflow illustrates the work that a business must accomplish to deliver the value it needs to the business actors it serves. Business use cases consist of a series of activities that collectively generate certain artifacts for the business lead. Workflows typically include a basic workflow and one or more alternative workflows.

Syntax Examples:

@startuml (*)--"Start" note right:start testing If "result" then -->[true] "Next testing" - -"End" -right-> (*) else ->[false] "Change testing" -->[ending process] (*) endif

Figure 7: Activity Diagram View

Component diagram

Component diagram-used to reflect the physical structure of the code. From the component diagram, you can learn about compiler and run-time dependencies between software components, such as source code files or dynamic-link libraries. Using component diagrams, you can divide the system into cohesive components and display the structure of the code itself.

Syntax Examples:

@startuml title Lotus Interface "Ibmdocs" as SC package "Test1" { sc-[first component] Notes-[first component]: US e Symphony-[second component] [other components] } package "Test2" { Connections-[third component] [first component]--iNo TES }

Figure 8. Component Diagram View

State diagram

State diagram-Describes an entity's dynamic behavior based on event response, showing how the entity is based on the current state

Responding to different events.

Syntax Examples:

@startuml [*]--Test state ' test ' as test {State ' testing module ' as TM state ' configuring module ' a s CM [*]---CM TM-- cm:testing1 cm-- tm:testing2 }

Figure 9. State Diagram View

Object graph

Object Graph-shows a set of objects and their relationships. Use an object graph to describe a static snapshot of a data structure, a class or component in a class diagram, and so on. Object graphs and class diagrams reflect the static process of a system, but it is expressed in terms of actual or archetypal scenarios. The object graph shows the relationship between objects and objects at some point. An object graph can be seen as a special use case for a class diagram in which instances and classes can be displayed. Objects are also linked to the collaboration diagram, which shows the prototype of the object in context (the class meta role).

Syntax Examples:

@startuml Object Test1 Object Test2

Figure 10: Example of an object graph

The following article will briefly describe the application of a specific instance.

This example is provided by its official website:

Http://plantuml.sourceforge.net/unicode.html

Figure 11 is an example diagram generated by the Plantuml method.

Figure 11: concrete Example Diagram

In the official homepage of PLANTUML, there are more detailed descriptions and descriptions of the various methods. The text simply lists a few simple grammatical rules that take advantage of the various views made by PLANTUML. You can see that PLANTUML provides a very simple syntax rule that provides a convenient way for users to edit.

PLANTUML offers many ways to edit languages, such as TXT text, Html,java,c/c++,latex,apt,word and URLs, to meet different user needs.

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Summarize

This paper introduces an open source software-plantuml, which is a simple and fast UML editing software, and PLANTUML is a Java class library used to draw UML diagrams. Provides a variety of simple and effective methods to support various views of UML, including: Time series diagram, use case diagram, Class diagram, Component diagram, activity diagram and so on. PLANTUML can help developers to build and edit UML, provide developers with more development conditions, have a better application prospects.

plantuml--Simple and fast UML editing software for Eclipse