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In software engineering, a class diagram [1] in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a type of static structure diagram that describes the structure of a system by showing the system's classes, their attributes, operations (or methods), and the relationships among objects. The class diagram is the main building block of object-oriented modeling.
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 ...
[26] [27] In C++, an abstract class is a class having at least one abstract method given by the appropriate syntax in that language (a pure virtual function in C++ parlance). [25] A class consisting of only pure virtual methods is called a pure abstract base class (or pure ABC) in C++ and is also known as an interface by users of the language. [13]
For example, in Python, any class can implement an __iter__ method and be used as a collection. [3] Type classes in languages like Haskell, or module signatures in ML and OCaml, are used for many of the things that protocols are used for. [clarification needed] In Rust, interfaces are called traits. [4]
Python allows the creation of class methods and static methods via the use of the @classmethod and @staticmethod decorators. The first argument to a class method is the class object instead of the self-reference to the instance. A static method has no special first argument. Neither the instance, nor the class object is passed to a static method.
According to Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software: "Define an interface for creating an object, but let subclasses decide which class to instantiate. Factory method lets a class defer instantiation to subclasses." [2] Creating an object often requires complex processes not appropriate to include within a composing object.
Like Smalltalk, in Objective-C, the instance variables and methods are defined by an object's class. A class is an object, hence it is an instance of a metaclass. Like Smalltalk, in Objective-C, class methods are simply methods called on the class object, hence a class's class methods must be defined as instance methods in its metaclass.
A sample UML class and sequence diagram for the Decorator design pattern. [7] In the above UML class diagram, the abstract Decorator class maintains a reference (component) to the decorated object (Component) and forwards all requests to it (component.operation()). This makes Decorator transparent (invisible) to clients of Component.