The component specification must be able to occur in a certain sequence to define the composite.  And, they may be preceded and/or followed by certain characters.  For example, the format of a phone number could contain dashes, such as 972-477-8401.  Figure EI.05 – The EntityIdentificationSpecificationFormat Association Class below shows an association class added to hold the sequence in which the components appear in a composite object, along with its formatting attributes.<br/>