OBJECTS AND CLASSES

The heart of object-oriented programming is to find

objects -- entities that have behaviors, that hold
information, and that can interact with one another.
Objects, Instance Methods, and Instance
Variables
Class
 A class describes an object.
 A class is used to create an object.
 A class is a kind of a blueprint.
 A class contains variables (attributes) and
subroutines (behavior).
Class
 Supports three key features of OOP:
 Encapsulation
 Inheritance
 Polymorphism
Instance Variables and Methods
 Instance variables or attributes
• define the state of an object in a class.
• can also be objects.
 Instance Methods
• functions that provide processing to the object’s data.
• determine the behavior of an object.
• The collection of all publicly available methods is
called the class interface.
Encapsulation
 Hides the implementation details of a class
 Forces the user to use an interface to access data
 Makes the code more maintainable
How to refer to instance variables and methods?

 The dot notation: <object>.<member>

 Syntax:
objectvariable.instancevariable
objectvariable.instancemethod
Object
 An object that belongs to a class is said to be an
instance of that class.
 The variables that the object contains are called
instance variables.
 The subroutines that the object contains are called
instance methods.
How Are Objects Created?
 An object is created when its is instantiated using
the new keyword.
 Calling new ...() causes the following events to
occur:
• memory is allocated for the new object and instance
variables are initialized to their default values
• explicit attribute initialization is performed
• the appropriate constructor is executed
A Class as a Type
 A class name can be used to specify the type of a
variable in a declaration statement, the type of a
formal parameter, or the return type of a function.

 Note: Declaring a variable does not create an

object!
Constructors and Object Initialization
Initializing Instance Variables
 An instance variable can be assigned an initial
value in its declaration, just like any other variable.
 An instance variable can be initialized using a
constructor.
Constructors
 A special type of subroutine.
 The definition of a constructor looks much like the
definition of any other subroutine, with three exceptions.
 A constructor does not have any return type (not even void).
 The name of the constructor must be the same as the name of
the class in which it is defined.
 And the only modifiers that can be used on a constructor
definition are the access modifiers public, private, and
protected. (In particular, a constructor can't be declared
static.)
The this reference
 When a method is invoked by an object, the object
reference is implicitly transmitted as a hidden first
argument to the method. Inside the method, the
reference has a name and it is called this.
Method Overloading
 Java allows the definition of two or more methods with the same
name within the same class provided that the order and type of
parameters are different.
 Example:
class Dummy {
public void display() {
}
public void display(int x) {
}
public void display(int x,char ch) {
}
}
Setters and Getters
Setter Method
 Allows “write access” to private variables.
 Also called the mutator method.
 The name of a setter method should consist of "set"
followed by a capitalized copy of the variable's
name, and it should have a parameter with the same
type as the variable.
Getter Method
 Also called the accessor method.
 It allows other classes to find out what are the
values of the variables.
 By convention, the name of an accessor method for
a variable is obtained by capitalizing the name of
variable and adding "get" in front of the name.
The Class “Object”
Class “Object”
 The root of all classes.
 It defines several instance methods that are
inherited by every other class.
 Two common methods:
1. public String toString()
2. public boolean equals(Object obj)