Component Associations

Component associations express the relationship between the parts of a system and the system itself. Component associations describe what elements make up a system. Abstract classes that express component associations are used to create concrete associations of this type in descendent classes. The descendent concrete associations answer the question: "What composition relationships does the component, or class, have with other components?"

In its most specialized role, the component association expresses the relationship between a system and its logical and physical parts.