Class Diagram - Association

I have a question concerning an association: the association depicts a relationship between two objects, which is also defined by the properties of the objects (depending on how they are naviagble etc.).

In my diagram, I have a service which may be used for searches within a database as well as storing changes within the objects it searches (following the DAO pattern).

Does the service (the DAO) have an association to the objects it handles? It does not have a list of objects - it only provides search functionality. So I’m not quite sure…

Many thanks in advance - Alex

Personally, I would not model a relationship between the service and the objects.

At most, I would model that the operation within the service returns a particular object type but since the service itself has no relationship with that object, as you stated with it not having a list of objects, then there’s no relationship to model.