MVC Pattern – How to Divide Work Among Development Team Members in a Website Project

In short, you want to create an MVC app that allows a user to identify a file; read the file; and then push the contents of that file into a database layer. Additionally, you want to treat the file handling routines as a Model.

View

• This will be your console application providing user input & feedback.
• User can select a file (via whatever means you pick)
• View will either call controller with file name / descriptor or leave it in a place where the controller can poll and pick it up. I'd have the View call the Controller, but I'm just pointing out other ways of doing it.

Controller

• Receives file name from View
• Calls Model.FileServices with file name
• Receives data returned from Model.FileServices, aka contents of file.
• Calls Model.DBAccessLayer to store data returned from Model.FileServices.
• Provide updates to View regarding transfer progress

Note, you'll end up with at least two Model modules. One for the FileServices and one for the DBAccessLayer.

So that's all well and good, but as file sizes increase then your system may not have enough memory to handle the entire file contents. There's a couple of options to resolve that issue.

1. Have the FileServices implement a skip-take type call. This will allow you to pick up ### Byte blocks from the file and push to the DBA Model.

2. Implement a method within the Model.DBA that essentially creates a stream between the FileServices and the DBAccessLayer. That would remove the Controller from acting as a traffic director, but it complicates the DBAccessLayer instead.

Of the two options, I would prefer the first as I think it more appropriately assigns responsibilities for the associated actions.

A class diagram should work as a graphical representation of the code you are intending to write. You can leave out implementation details that are not important for understanding the design of the code, but the elements that you do show in a class diagram should also be directly represented in the code.

This means that if your ' User Model' consists of one class that fills the roles of both the Undergrad and Graduate users, then it should also be depicted as one class in a class diagram.
But given your description, I would expect the model to contain at least two classes (Undergrad and Graduate) with a common interface or abstract base class.

Note that the fact that there are only three components to MVC does not mean that you can only show three classes in a class diagram. In a typical class diagram of an MVC application, the use of MVC may not even be obvious to the untrained eye. For example, it can be hidden in the naming of the classes and how they are grouped in the drawing. If you want to make the MVC pattern obvious in your class diagram, I would recommend using colours to indicate the classes that together form the Model, View or Controller parts of the MVC pattern.