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Downcasting
In class-based programming, downcasting, or type refinement, is the act of casting a ''base'' or ''parent'' class reference, to a more restricted '' derived class'' reference. This is only allowable if the object is already an instance of the derived class, and so this conversion is inherently fallible. In contrast ''upcasting'', explicitly treating an object as if it's an instance of one of its superclasses, is always possible. In many environments, type introspection can be used to obtain the type of an object instance at runtime, and then use this result to explicitly evaluate its type compatibility with another type. The possible results of comparing polymorphic types—besides them being equivalent (identical), or unrelated (incompatible)—include two additional cases: namely, where the first type is derived from the second, and then the same thing but swapped the other way around (see: ). With this information, a program can test, before performing an operation such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Type Conversion
In computer science, type conversion, type casting, type coercion, and type juggling are different ways of changing an expression from one data type to another. An example would be the conversion of an integer value into a floating point value or its textual representation as a string, and vice versa. Type conversions can take advantage of certain features of type hierarchies or data representations. Two important aspects of a type conversion are whether it happens ''implicitly'' (automatically) or ''explicitly'', and whether the underlying data representation is converted from one representation into another, or a given representation is merely ''reinterpreted'' as the representation of another data type. In general, both primitive and compound data types can be converted. Each programming language has its own rules on how types can be converted. Languages with strong typing typically do little implicit conversion and discourage the reinterpretation of representations, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Class-based Programming
Class-based programming, or more commonly class-orientation, is a style of object-oriented programming (OOP) in which inheritance (object-oriented programming), inheritance occurs via defining ''class (computer programming), classes'' of object (computer science), objects, instead of inheritance occurring via the objects alone (compare prototype-based programming). The most popular and developed model of OOP is a class-based model, instead of an object-based model. In this model, objects are entities that combine ''state (computer science), state'' (i.e., data), ''behavior'' (i.e., procedures, or ''method (computer science), methods'') and ''identity (object-oriented programming), identity'' (unique existence among all other objects). The structure and behavior of an object are defined by a class (object-oriented programming), class, which is a definition, or blueprint, of all objects of a specific type. An object must be explicitly created based on a class and an object thus crea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subtyping
In programming language theory, subtyping (also called subtype polymorphism or inclusion polymorphism) is a form of type polymorphism. A ''subtype'' is a datatype that is related to another datatype (the ''supertype'') by some notion of substitutability, meaning that program elements (typically subroutines or functions), written to operate on elements of the supertype, can also operate on elements of the subtype. If S is a subtype of T, the subtyping relation (written as , , or ) means that any term of type S can ''safely be used'' in ''any context'' where a term of type T is expected. The precise semantics of subtyping here crucially depends on the particulars of how ''"safely be used"'' and ''"any context"'' are defined by a given type formalism or programming language. The type system of a programming language essentially defines its own subtyping relation, which may well be trivial, should the language support no (or very little) conversion mechanisms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Type Introspection
In computing, type introspection is the ability of a program to ''examine'' the type or properties of an object at runtime. Some programming languages possess this capability. Introspection should not be confused with reflection, which goes a step further and is the ability for a program to ''manipulate'' the metadata, properties, and functions of an object at runtime. Some programming languages also possess that capability (e.g., Java, Python, Julia, and Go). Examples Objective-C In Objective-C, for example, both the generic Object and NSObject (in Cocoa/ OpenStep) provide the method which returns true if the argument to the method is an instance of the specified class. The method analogously returns true if the argument inherits from the specified class. For example, say we have an and an class inheriting from . Now, in the method we can write - (void)eat:(id)sth Now, when is called with a generic object (an ), the function will behave correctly depending ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inheritance (object-oriented Programming)
In object-oriented programming, inheritance is the mechanism of basing an Object (computer science), object or Class (computer programming), class upon another object (Prototype-based programming, prototype-based inheritance) or class (Class-based programming, class-based inheritance), retaining similar implementation. Also defined as deriving new classes (#Subclasses and superclasses, sub classes) from existing ones such as super class or Fragile base class, base class and then forming them into a hierarchy of classes. In most class-based object-oriented languages like C++, an object created through inheritance, a "child object", acquires all the properties and behaviors of the "parent object", with the exception of: Constructor (object-oriented programming), constructors, destructors, operator overloading, overloaded operators and friend functions of the base class. Inheritance allows programmers to create classes that are built upon existing classes, to specify a new implementat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polymorphism (computer Science)
In programming language theory and type theory, polymorphism is the use of one symbol to represent multiple different types.: "Polymorphic types are types whose operations are applicable to values of more than one type." In object-oriented programming, polymorphism is the provision of one Interface (object-oriented programming), interface to entities of different data types. The concept is borrowed from a principle in biology where an organism or species can have many different forms or stages. The most commonly recognized major forms of polymorphism are: * ''Ad hoc polymorphism'': defines a common interface for an arbitrary set of individually specified types. * ''Parametric polymorphism'': not specifying concrete types and instead use abstract symbols that can substitute for any type. * ''Subtyping'' (also called ''subtype polymorphism'' or ''inclusion polymorphism''): when a name denotes instances of many different classes related by some common superclass. History Interest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OCaml
OCaml ( , formerly Objective Caml) is a General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, High-level programming language, high-level, Comparison of multi-paradigm programming languages, multi-paradigm programming language which extends the Caml dialect of ML (programming language), ML with Object-oriented programming, object-oriented features. OCaml was created in 1996 by Xavier Leroy, Jérôme Vouillon, Damien Doligez, Didier Rémy, Ascánder Suárez, and others. The OCaml toolchain includes an interactive top-level Interpreter (computing), interpreter, a bytecode compiler, an optimizing native code compiler, a reversible debugger, and a package managerOPAM together with a composable build system for OCamlDune. OCaml was initially developed in the context of automated theorem proving, and is used in static program analysis, static analysis and formal methods software. Beyond these areas, it has found use in systems programming, web development, and specific financial utili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynamic Cast
In computer programming, run-time type information or run-time type identification (RTTI) is a feature of some programming languages (such as C++, Object Pascal, and Ada) that exposes information about an object's data type at runtime. Run-time type information may be available for all types or only to types that explicitly have it (as is the case with Ada). Run-time type information is a specialization of a more general concept called type introspection. In the original C++ design, Bjarne Stroustrup did not include run-time type information, because he thought this mechanism was often misused. Overview In C++, RTTI can be used to do safe typecasts using the dynamic_cast operator, and to manipulate type information at runtime using the typeid operator and std::type_info class. In Object Pascal, RTTI can be used to perform safe type casts with the as operator, test the class to which an object belongs with the is operator, and manipulate type information at run time with classes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Static Cast
In the C++ programming language, static_cast is an operator that performs an explicit type conversion. Syntax static_cast (object); The ''type'' parameter must be a data type to which ''object'' can be converted via a known method, whether it be a builtin or a cast. The type can be a reference or an enumerator. All types of conversions that are well-defined and allowed by the compiler are performed using static_cast. The static_cast operator can be used for operations such as: * converting a pointer of a base class to a pointer of a non-virtual derived class (downcasting); * converting numeric data types such as enums to ints or floats. Although static_cast conversions are checked at compile time to prevent obvious incompatibilities, no run-time type checking is performed that would prevent a cast between incompatible data types, such as pointers. A static_cast from a pointer to a class B to a pointer to a derived class D is ill-formed if B is an inaccessible or ambiguo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Top Type
In mathematical logic and computer science, some type theories and type systems include a top type that is commonly denoted with top or the symbol ⊤. The top type is sometimes called also ''universal type'', or ''universal supertype'' as all other types in the type system of interest are subtypes of it, and in most cases, it contains every possible object of the type system. It is in contrast with the bottom type, or the ''universal subtype'', which every other type is supertype of and it is often that the type contains no members at all. Support in programming languages Several typed programming languages provide explicit support for the top type. In statically-typed languages, there are two different, often confused, concepts when discussing the top type. # A ''universal base class'' or other item at the top of a runtime ''class hierarchy'' (often relevant in object-oriented programming) or ''type hierarchy''; it is often possible to create objects with this (runtime) type ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Java (programming Language)
Java is a High-level programming language, high-level, General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, Memory safety, memory-safe, object-oriented programming, object-oriented programming language. It is intended to let programmers ''write once, run anywhere'' (Write once, run anywhere, WORA), meaning that compiler, compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need to recompile. Java applications are typically compiled to Java bytecode, bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture. The syntax (programming languages), syntax of Java is similar to C (programming language), C and C++, but has fewer low-level programming language, low-level facilities than either of them. The Java runtime provides dynamic capabilities (such as Reflective programming, reflection and runtime code modification) that are typically not available in traditional compiled languages. Java gained popularity sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Java Generics
Generics are a facility of generic programming that were added to the Java programming language in 2004 within version J2SE 5.0. They were designed to extend Java's type system to allow "a type or method to operate on objects of various types while providing compile-time type safety". The aspect '' compile-time type safety'' required that parametrically polymorphic functions are not implemented in the Java virtual machine, since type safety is impossible in this case. The Java collections framework supports generics to specify the type of objects stored in a collection instance. In 1998, Gilad Bracha, Martin Odersky, David Stoutamire and Philip Wadler created Generic Java, an extension to the Java language to support generic types. Generic Java was incorporated in Java with the addition of wildcards. Hierarchy and classification According to ''Java Language Specification'': *A type variable is an unqualified identifier. Type variables are introduced by generic class declarations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
