text=An association is a structural relationship showing that objects of one classifier (actor, use case, class, interface, node, or component) are connected and can navigate to objects of another classifier. An association connects two classifiers—a primary (supplier) classifier and a secondary (consumer) classifier—even in bidirectional associations. Associations help you make design decisions about the structure of your data—not only the classes needed to contain the data, but also which classes need to share data with other classes. An association supports data sharing between classes or, in the case of a self-association, between objects of the same class.