umlclass-diagramer-diagram

Differences between a conceptual UML class diagram and an ERD?


If I create a conceptual class diagram such that each class captures 'name' and 'attributes' but not 'operations', have I not basically created what would be otherwise considered an ERD? I'm trying to gain an understanding of what the differences are between creating a conceptual class diagram as I have described versus calling it a ERD? If these are still two different animals, can somebody please explain what the differences are?


Solution

  • There´s little difference in the expressiveness of both (if we just focus on the attributes, classes and associations part) if you use Extended Entity Relationship diagrams (the most common case nowadays)

    True, they look very different at the graphical level since they use different symbols for the elements but the "semantics" are quite similar. They both allow inheritance (again, I´m talking about EER), n-ary associations, association classes, ...