Tearing off is a method by which you can pull an attribute out of the part it belongs to, exposing its public interface. Attributes of a part are subparts that are publicly accessible, enabling other parts to connect to them. The subpart represented by an attribute is itself a full-fledged part, and can therefore have attributes, actions, and events of its own.

However, an attribute appears on the public interface as a single, unified object, giving access to the subpart as a whole but not to the individual features on that subpart's public interface.

Attribute address torn off from part Customer.

When you tear off an attribute, you are not actually removing it, but creating a variable, which you can then manipulate as though it were a stand-alone part. But the relationship between the attribute and the part it belongs to does not change.