An Execution Model for UML Component Diagrams Integrated Into Java Programming

XParts is an UML-based architecture description language and an application framework for Java applications. It is a simple extension of the Java language by providing an architecture model descriptor. The architecture description utilizes UML component diagrams and gives it a simple, precise, and feasible semantics. An application interprets the model descriptor. Hence, there is no gap between documented and programmed architecture and a developer needs not to work with generated code. A special emphasis of XParts is on a delegation model for method and event handling within nested components. An application developer simply specifies the delegation between outer and inner components. No programming is needed. The advantage of this delegation model is that it eases the reuse and assembling of components substantially. The software is available as open source code [Sc 02].