Object-Oriented Programming

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm. A programming paradigm guides programmers to analyze programming problems, and structure programming solutions, in a specific way.

Programming languages have traditionally divided the world into two parts—data and operations on data. Data is static and immutable, except as the operations may change it. The procedures and functions that operate on data have no lasting state of their own; they’re useful only in their ability to affect data.

This division is, of course, grounded in the way computers work, so it’s not one that you can easily ignore or push aside. Like the equally pervasive distinctions between matter and energy and between nouns and verbs, it forms the background against which you work. At some point, all programmers—even object-oriented programmers—must lay out the data structures that their programs will use and define the functions that will act on the data.

With a procedural programming language like C, that’s about all there is to it. The language may offer various kinds of support for organizing data and functions, but it won’t divide the world any differently. Functions and data structures are the basic elements of design.

Object-oriented programming doesn’t so much dispute this view of the world as restructure it at a higher level. It groups operations and data into modular units called objects and lets you combine objects into structured networks to form a complete program. In an object-oriented programming language, objects and object interactions are the basic elements of design.

_{-- Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C, Apple}

Some other examples of programming paradigms are:

Some programming languages support multiple paradigms.

Every object has both state (data) and behavior (operations on data). In that, they’re not much different from ordinary physical objects. It’s easy to see how a mechanical device, such as a pocket watch or a piano, embodies both state and behavior. But almost anything that’s designed to do a job does, too. Even simple things with no moving parts such as an ordinary bottle combine state (how full the bottle is, whether or not it’s open, how warm its contents are) with behavior (the ability to dispense its contents at various flow rates, to be opened or closed, to withstand high or low temperatures).

It’s this resemblance to real things that gives objects much of their power and appeal. They can not only model components of real systems, but equally as well fulfill assigned roles as components in software systems.

_{-- Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C, Apple}

Object Oriented Programming (OOP) views the world as a network of interacting objects.

OOP solutions try to create a similar object network inside the computer’s memory – a sort of virtual simulation of the corresponding real world scenario – so that a similar result can be achieved programmatically.

OOP does not demand that the virtual world object network follow the real world exactly.

Every object has both state (data) and behavior (operations on data).

Every object has an interface and an implementation.

Every real world object has:

• an interface through which other objects can interact with it
• an implementation that supports the interface but may not be accessible to the other object

Similarly, every object in the virtual world has an interface and an implementation.

Objects interact by sending messages. Both real world and virtual world object interactions can be viewed as objects sending messages to each other. The message can result in the sender object receiving a response and/or the receiver object’s state being changed. Furthermore, the result can vary based on which object received the message, even if the message is identical (see rows 1 and 2 in the example below).

The concept of Objects in OOP is an abstraction mechanism because it allows us to abstract away the lower level details and work with bigger granularity entities i.e. ignore details of data formats and the method implementation details and work at the level of objects.

Encapsulation protects an implementation from unintended actions and from inadvertent access.
_{-- Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C, Apple}

An object is an encapsulation of some data and related behavior in terms of two aspects:

1. The packaging aspect: An object packages data and related behavior together into one self-contained unit.

2. The information hiding aspect: The data in an object is hidden from the outside world and are only accessible using the object's interface.

Writing an OOP program is essentially writing instructions that the computer will use to,

1. create the virtual world of the object network, and
2. provide it the inputs to produce the outcome you want.

A class contains instructions for creating a specific kind of objects. It turns out sometimes multiple objects keep the same type of data and have the same behavior because they are of the same kind. Instructions for creating a 'kind' (or ‘class’) of objects can be done once and those same instructions can be used to i.e. create instances ofinstantiate objects of that kind. You call such instructions a Class.

While all objects of a class have the same attributes, each object has its own copy of the attribute value.

However, some attributes are not suitable to be maintained by individual objects. Instead, they should be maintained centrally, shared by all objects of the class. They are like ‘global variables’ but attached to a specific class. Such variables whose value is shared by all instances of a class are called class-level attributes.

Similarly, when a normal method is being called, a message is being sent to the receiving object and the result may depend on the receiving object.

However, there can be methods related to a specific class but not suitable for sending messages to a specific object of that class. Such methods that are called using the class instead of a specific instance are called class-level methods.

Class-level attributes and methods are collectively called class-level members (also called static members sometimes because some programming languages use the keyword static to identify class-level members). They are to be accessed using the class name rather than an instance of the class.

An Enumeration is a fixed set of values that can be considered as a data type. An enumeration is often useful when using a regular data type such as int or String would allow invalid values to be assigned to a variable.

Objects in an OO solution need to be connected to each other to form a network so that they can interact with each other. Such connections between objects are called associations.

Associations in an object structure can change over time.

Associations among objects can be generalized as associations between the corresponding classes too.

Implementing associations

You use instance level variables to implement associations.

When two classes are linked by an association, it does not necessarily mean the two objects taking part in an instance of the association knows about (i.e., has a reference to) each other. The concept of which object in the association knows about the other object is called navigability.

Navigability can be unidirectional or bidirectional. Suppose there is an association between the classes Box and Rope, and the Box object b and the Rope object r is taking part in one instance of that association.

• Unidirectional: If the navigability is from Box to Rope, b will have a reference to r but r will not have a reference to b. Similarly, if the navigability is in the other direction, r will have a reference to b but b will not have a reference to r.
• Bidirectional: b will have a reference to r and r will have a reference to b i.e., the two objects will be pointing to each other for the same single instance of the association.

Note that two unidirectional associations in opposite directions do not add up to a single bidirectional association.

class Person {
    Cat pet;
    //...
}

class Cat{
    Person owner;
    //...
}

class Person:

  def __init__(self):
    self.pet = None  # a Cat object


class Cat:

  def __init__(self):
    self.owner = None  # a Person object

class Person {
    Cat pet;
    //...
}

class Cat{
    Person breeder;
    //...
}

class Person:

  def __init__(self):
    self.pet = None  # a Cat object


class Cat:

  def __init__(self):
    self.breeder = None  # a Person object

Multiplicity is the aspect of an OOP solution that dictates how many objects take part in each association.

Implementing multiplicity

A normal instance-level variable gives us a 0..1 multiplicity (also called optional associations) because a variable can hold a reference to a single object or null.

class Logic {
    Minefield minefield;
    // ...
}

class Minefield {
    //...
}

class Logic:
  
  def __init__(self):
    self.minefield = None
    
  # ...


class Minefield:
  # ...

A variable can be used to implement a 1 multiplicity too (also called compulsory associations).

class Logic {
    ConfigGenerator cg = new ConfigGenerator();
    ...
}

class Logic:

  def __init__(self):
    self.config_gen = ConfigGenerator()

Bidirectional associations require matching variables in both classes.

class Foo {
    Bar bar;
    //...
}

class Bar {
    Foo foo;
    //...
}

class Foo:
  
  def __init__(self, bar):
    self.bar = bar;


class Bar:
  
  def __init__(self, foo):
    self.foo = foo;
    

To implement other multiplicities, choose a suitable data structure such as Arrays, ArrayLists, HashMaps, Sets, etc.

class Minefield {
    Cell[][] cell;
    ...
}

class Minefield:
  
  def __init__(self):
    self.cells = {1:[], 2:[], 3:[]}

In the context of OOP associations, a dependency is a need for one class to depend on another without having a direct association in the same direction. Reason for the exclusion: If there is an association from class Foo to class Bar (i.e., navigable from Foo to Bar), that means Foo is obviously dependent on Bar and hence there is no point in mentioning dependency specifically. In other words, we are only concerned about non-obvious dependencies here. One cause of such dependencies is interactions between objects that do not have a long-term link between them.

class Foo {
    
    int calculate(Bar bar) {
        return bar.getValue();
    }
}

class Bar {
    int value;
    
    int getValue() {
        return value;
    }
}

class Foo:
    
    def calculate(self, bar):
        return bar.value;

class Bar:
    
    def __init__(self, value):
      self.value = value

A composition is an association that represents a strong whole-part relationship. When the whole is destroyed, parts are destroyed too i.e., the part should not exist without being attached to a whole.

Composition also implies that there cannot be cyclical links.

Whether a relationship is a composition can depend on the context.

A common use of composition is when parts of a big class are carved out as smaller classes for the ease of managing the internal design. In such cases, the classes extracted out still act as parts of the bigger class and the outside world has no business knowing about them.

Cascading deletion alone is not sufficient for composition. Suppose there is a design in which Person objects are attached to Task objects and the former get deleted whenever the latter is deleted. This fact alone does not mean there is a composition relationship between the two classes. For it to be composition, a Person must be an integral part of a Task in the context of that association, at the concept level (not simply at implementation level).

Identifying and keeping track of composition relationships in the design has benefits such as helping to maintain the data integrity of the system. For example, when you know that a certain relationship is a composition, you can take extra care in your implementation to ensure that when the whole object is deleted, all its parts are deleted too.

Implementing composition

Composition is implemented using a normal variable. If correctly implemented, the ‘part’ object will be deleted when the ‘whole’ object is deleted. Ideally, the ‘part’ object may not even be visible to clients of the ‘whole’ object.

class Email {
    private Subject subject;
  ...
}

class Email:

  def __init__(self):
    self.__subject = Subject()

Aggregation represents a container-contained relationship. It is a weaker relationship than composition.

Implementing aggregation

Implementation is similar to that of composition except the containee object can exist even after the container object is deleted.

class Team {
    Person leader;
    ...
    void setLeader(Person p) {
        leader = p;
    }
}

class Team:
  
  def __init__(self):
    self.__leader = None
    
  def set_leader(self, person):
    self.__leader = person

An association class represents additional information about an association. It is a normal class but plays a special role from a design point of view.

Implementing association classes

There is no special way to implement an association class. It can be implemented as a normal class that has variables to represent the endpoint of the association it represents.

class Transaction {
    
    //all fields are compulsory
    Person seller;
    Person buyer;
    Date date;
    String receiptNumber;
    
    Transaction(Person seller, Person buyer, Date date, String receiptNumber) {
        //set fields
    }
}

The OOP concept Inheritance allows you to define a new class based on an existing class.

• Other names for Base class: Parent class, Superclass
• Other names for Derived class: Child class, Subclass, Extended class

A superclass is said to be more general than the subclass. Conversely, a subclass is said to be more specialized than the superclass.

Applying inheritance on a group of similar classes can result in the common parts among classes being extracted into more general classes.

Inheritance implies the derived class can be considered as a sub-type of the base class (and the base class is a super-type of the derived class), resulting in an is a relationship.

Inheritance does not necessarily mean a sub-type relationship exists. However, the two often go hand-in-hand. For simplicity, at this point let us assume inheritance implies a sub-type relationship.

Inheritance relationships through a chain of classes can result in inheritance hierarchies (aka inheritance trees).

Two inheritance hierarchies/trees are given below. Note that the triangle points to the parent class. Observe how the Parrot is a Bird as well as it is an Animal.

Multiple Inheritance is when a class inherits directly from multiple classes. Multiple inheritance among classes is allowed in some languages (e.g., Python, C++) but not in other languages (e.g., Java, C#).

The Honey class inherits from the Food class and the Medicine class because honey can be consumed as a food as well as a medicine (in some oriental medicine practices). Similarly, a Car is a Vehicle, an Asset and a Liability.

Method overriding is when a sub-class changes the behavior inherited from the parent class by re-implementing the method. Overridden methods have the same name, same type signature, and same return type.

Method overloading is when there are multiple methods with the same name but different type signatures. Overloading is used to indicate that multiple operations do similar things but take different parameters.

An interface is a behavior specification i.e. a collection of Just the method signature without any implementationmethod specifications. If a class implements all methods specified in an interfaceimplements the interface, it means the class is able to support the behaviors specified by the said interface.

There are a number of situations in software engineering when it is important for disparate groups of programmers to agree to a "contract" that spells out how their software interacts. Each group should be able to write their code without any knowledge of how the other group's code is written. Generally speaking, interfaces are such contracts. _{--Oracle Docs on Java}

A class implementing an interface results in an is-a relationship, just like in class inheritance.

You can declare a class as abstract when a class is merely a representation of commonalities among its subclasses in which case it does not make sense to instantiate objects of that class.

A class that has an abstract method becomes an abstract class because the class definition is incomplete (due to the missing method body) and it is not possible to create objects using an incomplete class definition.

Every instance of a subclass is an instance of the superclass, but not vice-versa. As a result, inheritance allows substitutability: the ability to substitute a child class object where a parent class object is expected.

An AcademicStaff is an instance of a Staff, but a Staff is not necessarily an instance of an AcademicStaff. i.e. wherever an object of the superclass is expected, it can be substituted by an object of any of its subclasses.

The following code is valid because an AcademicStaff object is substitutable as a Staff object.

Staff staff = new AcademicStaff(); // OK

But the following code is not valid because staff is declared as a Staff type and therefore its value may or may not be of type AcademicStaff, which is the type expected by variable academicStaff.

Staff staff;
...
AcademicStaff academicStaff = staff; // Not OK

Overridden methods are resolved using dynamic binding, and therefore resolves to the implementation in the actual type of the object.

void adjustSalary(int byPercent) {
    for (Staff s: staff) {
        s.adjustSalary(byPercent);
    }
}

In contrast, overloaded methods are resolved using static binding.

class Account {

    Account() {
        // Signature: ()
        ...
    }

    Account(String name, String number, double balance) {
        // Signature: (String, String, double)
        ...
    }
}

void calculateGrade(int[] averages) { ... }
void calculateGrade(String matric) { ... }

Polymorphism allows you to write code targeting superclass objects, use that code on subclass objects, and achieve possibly different results based on the actual class of the object.

Polymorphism literally means "ability to take many forms".

Three concepts combine to achieve polymorphism: substitutability, operation overriding, and dynamic binding.

• Substitutability: Because of substitutability, you can write code that expects objects of a parent class and yet use that code with objects of child classes. That is how polymorphism is able to treat objects of different types as one type.
• Overriding: To get polymorphic behavior from an operation, the operation in the superclass needs to be overridden in each of the subclasses. That is how overriding allows objects of different subclasses to display different behaviors in response to the same method call.
• Dynamic binding: Calls to overridden methods are bound to the implementation of the actual object's class dynamically during the runtime. That is how the polymorphic code can call the method of the parent class and yet execute the implementation of the child class.

What is the difference between a Class, an Abstract Class, and an Interface?

• An interface is a behavior specification with no implementation.
• A class is a behavior specification + implementation.
• An abstract class is a behavior specification + a possibly incomplete implementation.

How does overriding differ from overloading?

Overloading is used to indicate that multiple operations do similar things but take different parameters. Overloaded methods have the same method name but different method signatures and possibly different return types.

Overriding is when a sub-class redefines an operation using the same method name and the same type signature. Overridden methods have the same name, same method signature, and same return type.