FUML15 — Objects at the composite end of an association should be considered "owned objects" during the destruction of the object at the other end

The UML specification the, for a DestroyObjectAction, "If isDestroyOwnedObjects is true, objects owned by the object through composite aggregation are destroyed..." [UML 2.5.1, 16.4.3.2] Clearly, this includes the case when one object "owns" another that is referenced in a composite property of the first object. It is less clear whether such ownership should also include an object linked to the first object by a composite association, in which the composite association end is owned by the association. However, it would seem likely that one would expect such objects to be included.

In fUML, the currently specified behavior for a DestroyObjectAction with isDestroyOwnedObjects = true is that composition links from an object being destroyed are always destroyed, but the object at the other end is not destroyed (see [fUML 1,4, 8.10.2.16 DestroyObjectActionActivation, operation destroyObject]). Note that such links are destroyed even if isDestroyLinks = false, which does not seem consistent with the UML specification. It would be more consistent if such linked objects were also considered "owned objects" and destroyed along with the owning object, just as if they had been referenced by a composite property of the owning object.

Update DestroyObjectActionActivation::destroyObject

The specification for DestroyObjectActionActivation::doAction actually includes the comment "If isDestroyOwnedObjects is true, destroy all objects owned by the referent via composition links", not even mentioning objects owned via attributes. The behavior of the action should be revised to destroy objects owned both via attributes and via links.