Database Design for Smarties: Using UML for Data Modeling
Learn UML techniques for object-oriented database design.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Database Design for Smarties: Using UML for Data Modeling
Chapter 4: Modeling Requirements with Use Cases
The court assembles. Hamlet sits by Ophelia and makes bawdy jests that trouble her, and also makes remarks to disturb the King and Queen. With pantomime and spoken action the Players enact a murder like that of Hamilet's father, and the wooing of the Queen. The King rushes out in agitation and the court disperses in confusion. Hamlet says the ghost has proved trustworthy.
A scenario describing Act 3, scene 2, of Shakespeare's Hamlet [Fuller 1966]
Overview
A scenario, in literature, is a summary of a scene or story that describes the plot in terms a reader can easily understand. The UML use case performs a similar function for the software system. Like scenarios for plays, use cases can at best give you a pale reflection of the real workings of the system. For all that, they are more than useful; they are essential. Done properly, the use cases for a system describe at a high level what the system should do. A use case has at least four major effects on database design:
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A use represents an atomic transaction through the system [Rational Software 1997b]. Knowing the system transactions lets you design the logical and physical database and the architecture to accommodate the transaction processing requirements of the system.
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A use case shows how the system uses data elements, both internally through inserting, updating, and deleting, and externally through querying. Knowing the set of data elements lets you organize them into user schemas and relate them to...
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