Checking Data Integrity via the UML Class Diagram

The class diagram is the most important UML diagram of an object-oriented software system. It includes both the static and behavioral aspects of its system. This can serve as a pattern for a persistent collection of objects, or as a scheme for a database system, and as a set of communication diagrams at the same time. Different types of behavioral diagrams, such as the use case and sequence diagram, are applied to delineate dynamics of the class diagram. This paper describes a framework in which a UML sequence diagram for ensuring data correctness of data objects is deduced from the UML class diagram. That is the derived diagram can be used to check data structures, or data integrities, of objects in respect to persistent collections of objects, or to database systems, when these collections are updated.