Collaboration Diagram 
A collaboration diagram is an interaction diagram that emphasizes the structural organization of a set of objects that send and receive messages.
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Background To top of page

Collaboration Diagrams are one of the two forms of object interaction diagram used in the UML.  The other is the Sequence Diagram (See Standards: Sequence Diagrams).  These diagrams present the same information but with different perspectives.  In Rose a collaboration diagram can be converted into a sequence diagram by using the menu option Browse: Create Sequence Diagram (F5).  The two diagrams are than automatically kept synchronized by Rose.

A collaboration diagram shows a set of objects, the links between them and the messages sent and received by the objects.  For the standards applicable to the items appearing on a collaboration diagram see Standards: Instances Overview.

In most cases, you use a collaboration diagram to show how objects interact to perform the behavior of a particular use case, or part of a use case (See Standards: Use Case Realizations).

Collaboration diagrams may also be used to demonstrate / explore how particular classes or packages fulfill their responsibilities (See Standards: Design Packages).

Naming Standards To top of page

Collaboration Diagram names should begin with an upper case letter. The naming standards for specific collaboration diagrams are defined for their containing model items (See Standards: Design Packages and Standards: Use Case Realizations).

Documentation To top of page

Where necessary the purpose of the diagram can be described in its documentation field. This is optional for standard diagrams but mandatory for any additional (non-standard) collaboration diagrams added to packages or use case realizations (See Standards: Design Packages and Standards: Use Case Realizations).

Rose Documentation To top of page

Although diagrams do not have a specification they do have a documentation field. If you select the diagram in the Browser then you will see the diagram's documentation in the documentation window. This can be edited directly in the documentation field.

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