Relation to Other Viewtypes

Module views are commonly mapped to views in the component-and-connector viewtype. The implementation units shown in module views have a mapping to components that executes at runtime. Sometimes, the mapping is quite straightforward, even one-to-one. Often, a single module will be replicated as many components; this one-to-many mapping is also straightforward. However, the mapping can be quite complex, with fragments of modules corresponding to fragments of components.

A common problem is the overloading of the module viewtype with information pertaining to other viewtypes. This can be quite useful when done in a disciplined fashion but can also lead to confusion. For example, showing a remote procedure call (RPC) connection in the module viewtype is implicitly introducing the "connector" concept from the component-and-connector viewtype. The module views are often confused with views that demonstrate runtime relationships. A module view represents a partitioning of the software; therefore, multiple instances of objects, for example, are not shown in this view.