Stereotyping Relationships

A stereotype extends the vocabulary of UML, allowing one to create more specific types of building blocks, ones that are more germain to the problem. Stereotypes are denoted by guillmets (<< >>) surrounding the word(s) used to describe the stereotype. There are two very common stereotypes that appear in use case diagrams -- specifically stereotypes of depends relationships. These are:

• << include >> - Conveys that one use case includes the behaviors of another inside of itself.
• << extend >> - Conveys that one use case extends some aspect of another use case.

Figure 1 - Relationship Stereotypes