Use Cases: Patterns and Blueprints

Chapter 7. Include: Reusing Existing Use Cases

Include Relationship

In the process of identifying and describing use cases, one might recognize the same subflow in two or more use cases. Obviously, if the purposes and the goals of these use cases are identical, if they interact with the same actors, and if the subflow constitutes most of the use cases, one should consider merging the use cases into one use case or introduce a generalization relationship (see Chapter 11, “Use-Case Generalization: Classification and Inheritance”). If both use cases include a certain subflow that is exactly the same in both flows, but otherwise are disparate and with different purposes and goals, however, it would be a mistake to join them. The resulting use case ...