Relaciones entre Casos de Uso en el Unified Modeling Language

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a semi-formal graphical language that has been accepted as standard to model object-oriented software systems. This language REVISTA COLOMBIANA DE COMPUTACIÓN Volumen 1, número 1 Págs. 73-90 Roxana S. Giandin / Claudia F. Pons 2 defines various kinds of diagrams which are used to describe different aspects or views of a system. In particular, Use Cases diagrams are used to capture the requirements of the systems and to guide their development process. The different Use Cases defined throughout a development process are not independent but it is possible to set relations between them. The main relations considered by UML are the following: Generalization, Include and Extend. These relations as well as the remaining UML constructs are semi-formally defined, giving place to ambiguous interpretations and inconsistancies. This paper presents a formalization that gives precision to the definition of the main relations between Use Cases. Also, this work studies -based on the formalizationthe composition between these relations during the evolution phase, showing in which cases this combination can be applied and when it may be conflicting.