Analysis Class

Analysis Class

Analysis class is a computer science term that relates to object-oriented programming. Specifically, the analysis class is a class that represents a fairly high-level abstraction from one or more classes of a given system's design. An analysis class is employed during the analysis of data in order to probe more deeply a sub-section of the data. An analysis class enables the state of a class to be defined.

Analysis classes are typically associated with one form of object-oriented programming known as UML (Unified Modeling Language).

In UML, an analysis class focuses on the functional handling requirements of the system and avoids non-functional requirements. An analysis class is designed to consider only the germane information. Information that is peripheral to the particular analysis is not considered, even though it might be related to the task. Analysis classes function to model a system and, by modeling the system, make possible the extraction of information. The example below illustrates the analysis class.

An airline counter attendant could be confronted by many choices when searching for information about passengers, flights and tickets. By breaking the search into categories, each category can be explored in depth. The categories, or "use case", could be to add or delete a passenger, search for a flight, search for a passenger, and issue a ticket. These are considered analysis classes. In one of these classes, "add or delete passenger", for example, various sub-categories could exist to add a passenger, edit a passenger, get flight information, update the passenger list, search for a passenger, and delete the passenger. These sub-categories all relate to one another. For example, if a passenger was added, the passenger list would be automatically updated.

There are three types, or stereotypes, of analysis class: entity, boundary, and control. An entity type of analysis class is used to model information that is long-lived and persistent. The boundary type of analysis class is used to model the interaction between a system and its user. The user can be another computer or piece of machinery, or a human. Finally, the control type of analysis class represents the coordination, sequencing, and control of other objects.

Analysis classes contain data that was derived from analysis of something. As such, the data is typically associated with a set of so-called responsibilities--the amount of iron in a water sample, as opposed to the amount of all metals in the water, for example. The information can be mapped to selectors--operations that have no effect on an object but can return information about the object. Using the above airport example, the passenger list can be queried without affecting the arrangement of the list.