In UML class diagrams, what are Boundary Classes, Control Classes, and Entity Classes?

Question

I'm now using NetBeans as my IDE-of-choice, and it has a plugin for UML modeling. In the class diagram, there are model elements known as "Boundary Class", "Control Class", and "Entity Class". However, I can't find a good definition of them, but I did find this site on UML Class Diagrams.

Answer 1

These are class stereotypes used in analysis.

• boundary classes are ones at the boundary of the system - the classes that you or other systems interact with

• entity classes classes are your typical business entities like "person" and "bank account"

• control classes implement some business logic or other

Answer 2

Often used with/as a part of OOAD and business modeling. The definition by Neil is correct, but it is basically identical to MVC, but just abstracted for the business. The "Good summary" is well done so I will not copy it here as it is not my work, more detailed but inline with Neil's bullet points.

Good summary - Conceito: Entity-Control-Boundary Pattern

OOAD

Answer 3

Google for "Robustness Diagrams". They aren't part of UML but are a commonly used extension.

Answer 4

Actually, the Robustness Diagrams (or Analysis Diagrams, as they are sometimes called) are just specialized Class Diagrams. They are a part of UML, and have been from the beginning (see Jacobson's book, The Unified Software Development Process - part of the "Three Amigos" series of books). The aforementioned book has a good definition of these three classes on pp 183-185.