Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The class defines the data format or type (including member variables and their types) and available procedures (class methods or member functions) for a given type or class of object. Objects are created by calling a special type of method in the class known as a constructor. Classes may inherit from other classes, so they are arranged in a ...
In Objective-C, the constructor method is split across two methods, "alloc" and "init" with the alloc method setting aside (allocating) memory for an instance of the class, and the init method handling the bulk of initializing the instance. A call to the method "new" invokes both the alloc and the init methods, for the class instance.
In computer programming, initialization or initialisation is the assignment of an initial value for a data object or variable. The manner in which initialization is performed depends on the programming language, as well as the type, storage class, etc., of an object to be initialized. Programming constructs which perform initialization are ...
Using a factory method to create instances of a class (factory method pattern) Storing the instances in a map, and returning the same instance to each request for an instance with same parameters (multiton pattern) Using lazy initialization to instantiate the object the first time it is requested (lazy initialization pattern)
Methods on objects are functions attached to the object's class; the syntax instance. method (argument) is, for normal methods and functions, syntactic sugar for Class. method (instance, argument). Python methods have an explicit self parameter to access instance data , in contrast to the implicit self (or this ) in some other object-oriented ...
The object methods include access to the object state (via an implicit or explicit parameter that references the object) whereas class methods do not. If the language supports inheritance , a class can be defined based on another class with all of its state and behavior plus additional state and behavior that further specializes the class.
A class variable is not an instance variable. It is a special type of class attribute (or class property, field, or data member). The same dichotomy between instance and class members applies to methods ("member functions") as well; a class may have both instance methods and class methods.
The hash function in Java, used by HashMap and HashSet, is provided by the Object.hashCode() method. Since every class in Java inherits from Object, every object has a hash function. A class can override the default implementation of hashCode() to provide a custom hash function more in accordance with the properties of the object.