Interpretation of Multiplicity of a relation - uml

I'm struggling to understand the multiplicity of a relation.
In general how should one interpret this
is this every entity of type P has between a and b entities of type C or between x and y or something else. All explanations I've found so for only adres the cases a,x = 0,1 and b,y = *

It's vice versa. P has x..y entities of type C in access and C has a..b of P.
As a side note: the multiplicity labels should not be placed to hide parts of the association.

Every Association contains two independent statements:
Every instance of P is linked to x..y instances of C
Every instance of C is linked to a..b instances of P
Being linked could mean, that P or C have an attribute of type C or P. This is the most common incarnation of a link, but UML does not prescribe this.

Related

Rotation function in Quaternions

Book "Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphcis(Third Edition)"
Chapter 4 Transform 4.6 Quaterions
it mentions below
"Extending the function φ to a mapping from H onto itself by requiring that
φ(s + v) = s + φ(v) allows us to rewrite Equation"
HERE , i don't know why "φ(s + v) = s + φ(v)" is requirement when the rotation function extending to H ?
anyone could show me some idea or documents to explain it ??
Thanks advance !
This is because the author want to characterize H as a "split" field of scalar and vector in R^3. He denote scalar with letter "s" and vector with letter "v". So members of H have the "split" form s + v. Note the + here is similar to complex numbers sum in the sense that what you really have is a pair (s, v) of elements from different fields.
Since the function φ has been defined on vectors so far, it can be applied only to v. So if you want to apply φ to members of H you need the definition φ(s + v) = s + φ(v). This is similar to the concept of overloading a function in C++ so you have two versions of the function with the same name but they act differently depending on the argument.

Proof there is no instance for a given UML-Diagram

Given the diagram in the top-right corner, I'm supposed to decide whether there is any valid instance of it. Now the given image is a counterproof by example ('wegen' means 'because of'). The counterproof uses the cardinality ('Mächtigkeit') of the objects.
I don't understand, why for example 2*|A| equals |C|, as in UML, A would be in relation with 2 objects of C (rel1). So for every A there have to be 2 C to make a valid instance. 2*|A| = |C| should therefore be |A| = 2*|C|.
Why is it the other way around?
2*|A| = |C| since there is double the amount of C objects compared to A because each A has two C associated.
|A| = |B| because they have a 1-1 relation
3*|C| = 2*|B| because each C has 3 B and each B has 2 C
(4) and (5) are just substitutions where the last gives a contradiction
q.e.d
P.S. As #ShiDoiSi pointed out there is no {unique} constraint in the multiplicities. This will make it possible to have multiple associations to the same instance. Ergo, you have 1-1 relations. So with that being the case you actually CAN have a valid instantiation of the model.
Now go and tell that to your teacher xD

UML class diagram: class overriding relationship cardinality

I want to represent the following case using UML class diagram:
a class A that has some elements of C
a class B that is a subclass of A that contain 1 element of D that is subclass of C
Something like:
Example
Basically (in my mind), the class A has a collection of C but the subclass B only allows (at maximum) one element in that collection that should be instance of D.
What is the best way of representing it?
To change (limit) a cardinality or to specialise the type of element in a subclass you have to use a "redefines" constraint.
In your case your if your attribute in class A is
anAttribute:C[*]
Then in class B you'll have
anAttribute:D[0..1] {redefines anAttribute}
Of course you can use the same on an attribute shown as association (like in your diagram), then just add {redefines anAttribute} near the end of association (and of course association ends should both be named anAttribute then).

Simple Alloy constraint doesn't work as expected

The following model produces instances with exactly 2 address relations when the number of Books is limited to 1, however, if more Books are allowed it will create instances with 0-3 address relations. My misunderstanding of how Alloy works?
sig Name{}
sig Addr{}
sig Book { addr: Name -> lone Addr }
pred show(b:Book) { #b.addr = 2 }
// nr. of address relations in every Book should be 2
run show for 3 but 2 Book
// works as expected with 1 Book
Each instance of show should include one Book, labeled as being the b of show, which has two address pairs. But show does not say that every book must have two address pairs, only that at least one must have two address pairs.
[Postscript]
When you ask Alloy to show you an instance of a predicate, for example by the command run show, then Alloy should show you an instance: that is (quoting section 5.2.1 of Software abstractions, which you already have open) "an assignment of values to the variables of the constraint for which the constraint evaluates to true." In any given universe, there may be many other possible assignments of values to the variables for which the constraint evaluates to false; the existence of such possible non-suitable assignments is unavoidable in any universe with more than one atom.
Informally, we can think of a run command for a predicate P with arguments X, Y, Z as requesting that Alloy show us universes which satisfy the expression
some X, Y, Z : univ | P[X, Y, Z]
The run command does not amount to the expression
all X, Y, Z : univ | P[X, Y, Z]
If you want to see only universes in which every book has two pairs in its addr relation, then say so:
pred all_books_have_2 { all b : Book | #b.addr = 2 }
I think it's better that run have implicit existential quantification, rather than implicit universal quantification. One way to see why is to imagine a model that defines trees, such as:
sig Node { parent : lone Node }
fact parent_acyclic { no n : Node | n in n.^parent }
Suppose we get tired of seeing universes in which every tree is trivial and contains a single node. I'd like to be able to define a predicate that guarantees at least one tree with depth greater than 1, by writing
pred nontrivial[n : Node]{ some n.parent }
Given the constraint that trees be acyclic, there can never be a non-empty universe in which the predicate nontrivial holds for all nodes. So if run and pred had the semantics you have been supposing, we could not use nontrivial to find universes containing non-trivial trees.
I hope this helps.

Modelling the Chinese Go game

For an university project I'm trying to write the chinese game of Go (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28game%29) in Alloy. (i'm using the 4.2 version)
I managed to write the base structure. Go's played on a board 9 x 9 wide, but i'm using a smaller set of 3 x 3 for checking it faster.
The board is made of crosses which can either be empty or occupied by black or white stones.
abstract sig Colour {}
one sig White, Black, Empty extends Colour {}
abstract sig Cross {
Status: one Colour,
near: some Cross,
group: lone Group
}
one sig C11, C12, C13,
C21, C22, C23,
C31, C32, C33 extends Cross {}
sig Group {
stones : some Cross,
freedom : some Cross
}
pred closeStones {
near=
C11->C12 + C11->C21 +
C12->C11 + C12->C13 + C12->C22 +
C13->C12 + C13->C23 +
C21->C22 + C21->C11 + C21->C31 +
C22->C21 + C22->C23 + C22->C12 + C22->C32 +
C23->C22 + C23->C13 + C23->C33 +
C31->C32 + C31->C21 +
C32->C31 + C32->C33 + C32->C22 +
C33->C32 + C33->C23
}
fact stones2 {
all g : Group |
all c : Cross |
(c.group=g) iff c in g.stones
}
fact noGroup{
all c : Cross | (c.Status=Empty) iff c.group=none
}
fact groupNearStones {
all disj c,d : Cross |
((d in c.near) and c.Status=d.Status)
iff
d.group=c.group
}
The problem is: following Go rules, every stones must be considered as part of a group. This group is made of all the adiacent stones with the same colour.
My fact "groupNearStones" should be sufficient to describe that condition, but this way I can't get groups made of more of 3 stones.
I've tried rewriting it in different ways, but either the analizer says it found "0 variables" or it groups up all the stones with the same status, regardless of wheter they're near each other or not.
If you could give me any insight I will be grateful, since i'm breaking my head on this simple matter for days.
Ask yourself two questions.
First: in Go, what constitutes a group? You say yourself: it is a set of adjacent stones with the same color. Not that every stone in the group must be adjacent to every other; it suffices for every stone to be adjacent to another stone in the group.
So from a formal point of view: given a stone S, the set of stones in the group as S is the transitive closure of the stones reachable through the relation same_color_and_adjacent, or S.*same_color_and_adjacent.
Second: what constitutes being the same color and adjacent? I think you can define this easily, with what you have.
On a side issue; you may find it easier to scale the model to arbitrary sizes of boards if you reify the notion of rows and columns.
I hope this helps.
[Addendum:] Apparently it doesn't help enough. I'll try to be a bit more explicit, but I want the full solution to come from you and not from me.
Note that the point of defining a relation like same_color_and_adjacent is not to eliminate the formulation of facts or predicates in your model, but to make them easier to write and to write correctly. It's not magic.
Consider first a reformulation of your fact groupNearStones in terms of a single relation that holds for pairs of stones which are adjacent and have the same color. The relation can be defined by modifying your declaration for Cross:
abstract sig Cross {
Status: one Colour,
near: some Cross,
group: lone Group,
near_and_similar : some Cross
}{
near_and_similar = near & { c : Cross | c.#Status = Status}
}
Now your existing fact can be written as:
fact groupNearStones2 {
all disj c,d : Cross |
d in c.near_and_similar
iff
d.group=c.group
}
Actually, I would write both versions of groupNearStones as predicates, not facts. That would allow you to check that the new formulation is really equivalent to the old one by running a check like:
pred GNS_equal_GNS2 {
groupNearStones iff groupNearStones2
}
(I have not run such a check; I'm being a little lazy.)
Now, let us consider the problems you mention:
You never get groups containing more than three stones. Actually, given the formulation of groupNearStones, I'm surprised you get groups with more than two. Consider what groupNearStones says: any two stones in a group are adjacent and have the same color. Draw a board on a piece of paper and draw a group of five stones. Now ask whether such a group satisfies the fact groupNearStones. Say the group is C11, C12, C13, C21, C22. What does groupNearStones say about the pair C21, C13?
Do you see the problem? Are the relations near and 'close enough to be in the same group' really the same? If they are not the same, are they related?
Hint: think about transitive closure.
You never get groups containing a single stone.
How surprising is this, given that groupNearStones says that c.group = d.group only if c and d are disjoint? If you never get single-stone groups, then every stone that should be a single-stone group is not classed as being in any group at all, since such a stone must not satisfy the expression s.group = s.group.
Do you see the problem?
Hint: think about reflexive transitive closure.

Resources