Improving Code Generation for Associations: Enforcing Multiplicity Constraints and Ensuring Referential Integrity

UML classes involve three key elements: attributes, associations, and methods. Current object-oriented languages, like Java, do not provide a distinction between attributes and associations. Tools that generate code from associations currently provide little support for the rich semantics available to modellers such as enforcing multiplicity constraints or maintaining referential integrity. In this paper, we introduce a syntax for describing associations using a model-oriented language called Umple. We show source code from existing code-generation tools and highlight how the issues above are not adequately addressed. We outline code generation patterns currently available in Umple that resolve these difficulties and address the issues of multiplicity constraints and referential integrity.