Description technique for component composition focusing on black-box view

As component-based software is developed by integrating components that are implemented independently, expressing the usage protocols of each component is essential. However, there is no known proper way to describe them comprehensibly from the point of component user or developer. Black-box (external) point of view of component composition sees component-based development from the user's or the system assembler's point of view. But a description technique necessary to specify the dynamic constraint explicitly is necessary to define the external view more precisely. The key contribution of this paper is to present a technique for describing the structure of components in black-box view using UML 2.0. First, we present the relevant UML notations for describing the black-box point of view and then provide diagrams showing their usage. We further illustrate how this leads to a component based software specification of the structure of composition focusing on the black-box view.