Classes and Objects
Learn about classes and member variables in object-oriented programming.
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Classes and objects
In object-oriented programming, a class is like a blueprint, or description, of something. Let’s take the concept of a person as an example. How can we describe a person? We can start to make a list of things that apply to all people. A person has the following attributes:
- Name
- Age
- Sex
- Height
- Weight
- Hair color
- Eye color
- Shoe size
- Nationality
- Address
- Telephone number
The list can go on. We can now decide that these are things that apply to all people. If we think about it, this is all data about a person. We haven’t described any behavior. We could make another list that describes things a person can do. A person can do the following:
- Jump
- Run
- Walk
- Sit
- Stand
- Sleep
- Chill
- Work
- Play
- Dance
The same thing applies here—the list can be very long.
If we’re going to represent a person in a program, we won’t need all the available data and behavior. Instead, we need to make an abstract of a person in such a way that we can represent them with the things that ...