Class (computer programming)

In object-oriented programming, a class is an extensible program-code-template for creating objects, providing initial values for state (member variables) and implementations of behavior (member functions or methods). In many languages, the class name is used as the name for the class (the template itself). The name for the default constructor of the class (a subroutine that creates objects), and as the type of objects generated by instantiating the class; these distinct concepts are easily conflated. In object-oriented programming, a class is an extensible program-code-template for creating objects, providing initial values for state (member variables) and implementations of behavior (member functions or methods). In many languages, the class name is used as the name for the class (the template itself). The name for the default constructor of the class (a subroutine that creates objects), and as the type of objects generated by instantiating the class; these distinct concepts are easily conflated. When an object is created by a constructor of the class, the resulting object is called an instance of the class, and the member variables specific to the object are called instance variables, to contrast with the class variables shared across the class. In some languages, classes are only a compile-time feature (new classes cannot be declared at run-time), while in other languages classes are first-class citizens, and are generally themselves objects (typically of type .mw-parser-output .monospaced{font-family:monospace,monospace}Class or similar). In these languages, a class that creates classes is called a metaclass. In casual use, people often refer to the 'class' of an object, but narrowly speaking objects have type: the interface, namely the types of member variables, the signatures of member functions (methods), and properties these satisfy. At the same time, a class has an implementation (specifically the implementation of the methods), and can create objects of a given type, with a given implementation. In the terms of type theory, a class is an implementation‍—‌a concrete data structure and collection of subroutines‍—‌while a type is an interface. Different (concrete) classes can produce objects of the same (abstract) type (depending on type system); for example, the type Stack might be implemented with two classes – SmallStack (fast for small stacks, but scales poorly) and ScalableStack (scales well but high overhead for small stacks). Similarly, a given class may have several different constructors. Types generally represent nouns, such as a person, place or thing, or something nominalized, and a class represents an implementation of these. For example, a Banana type might represent the properties and functionality of bananas in general, while the ABCBanana and XYZBanana classes would represent ways of producing bananas (say, banana suppliers or data structures and functions to represent and draw bananas in a video game). The ABCBanana class could then produce particular bananas: instances of the ABCBanana class would be objects of type Banana. Often only a single implementation of a type is given, in which case the class name is often identical with the type name. Classes are composed from structural and behavioral constituents. Programming languages that include classes as a programming construct offer support, for various class-related features, and the syntax required to use these features varies greatly from one programming language to another. A class contains data field descriptions (or properties, fields, data members, or attributes). These are usually field types and names that will be associated with state variables at program run time; these state variables either belong to the class or specific instances of the class. In most languages, the structure defined by the class determines the layout of the memory used by its instances. Other implementations are possible: for example, objects in Python use associative key-value containers. Some programming languages support specification of invariants as part of the definition of the class, and enforce them through the type system. Encapsulation of state is necessary for being able to enforce the invariants of the class. The behavior of class or its instances is defined using methods. Methods are subroutines with the ability to operate on objects or classes. These operations may alter the state of an object or simply provide ways of accessing it. Many kinds of methods exist, but support for them varies across languages. Some types of methods are created and called by programmer code, while other special methods—such as constructors, destructors, and conversion operators—are created and called by compiler-generated code. A language may also allow the programmer to define and call these special methods.