Monday, July 7, 2014

association vs composition

COMPOSITION
Imagine a software firm that is composed of different Business Units (or departments) like Storage BU, Networking BU. Automobile BU. The life time of these Business Units is governed by the lifetime of the organization. In other words, these Business Units cannot exist independently without the firm. This is COMPOSITION. (ie the firm is COMPOSED OF business units)

ASSOCIATION
The software firm may have external caterers serving food to the employees. These caterers are NOT PART OF the firm. However, they are ASSOCIATED with the firm. The caterers can exist even if our software firm is closed down. They may serve another firm! Thus the lifetime of caterers is not governed by the lifetime of the software firm. This is typical ASSOCIATION

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/731802/what-is-the-difference-between-composition-and-association-relationship

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