Object Oriented Programming

Instructor Name:
Lecture-5
 Today’s Lecture

 Components of Class

 Fields

 Methods
 Main() Method, Setter Method, Getter Method, immutator.

Calling Method in same class Main method

Calling Method in other class.

 Creating Objects from class

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 Class & Methods

Messages to Object

“Start the
engine of the Object
BMW” <7_series_BMW>

Start_Engine

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 Class & Methods

Method of Class

Class
<CAR>

Start_Engine

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 Class & Methods

Behavior
 Behavior is how an object acts and reacts, in terms of state changes and
interactions with other objects.

 An operation is some action that one object performs upon another in order
to elicit a reaction.

 We will use the word method to describe object behavior in java.

 Invoking a method causes the behavior to take place.

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 Class & Methods

What is a Method?
 Method defines the behaviour or basic functionality of the class.

 Methods have two parts: a header and a body.

 Methods belong to a class
– Defined inside the class
 Heading
– Return type (e.g. int, float, void)
– Name (e.g. nextInt, println)
– Parameters (e.g. println(…) )
– More…
 Body
– enclosed in braces {}.
– Declarations and/or statements.
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 Class & Methods

Writing your own methods

 The general form of method definition is

scope type name(argument list) {

statements in the method body
}
 where scope indicates who has access to the method, type indicates what type
of value the method returns, name is the name of the method, and argument
list is a list of declarations for the variables used to hold the values of each
argument.
 The most common value for scope is private, which means that the method is
available only within its own class. If other Class need access to it, scope
should be public instead.
 If a method does not return a value, type should be void. Such methods are
sometimes called procedures. 7
 Class & Methods

Returning value from methods

 You can return a value from a method by including a return statement, which
is usually written as

return expression;
 where expression is a Java expression that specifies the value you want to
return.

 As an example, the method definition

private double feetToInches(double feet) {

return 12 * feet;
}

converts an argument indicating a distance in feet to the equivalent number

of inches, relying on the fact that there are 12 inches in a foot.
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 Class & Methods

Method Examples
public class Dog {
private String name;
private int age;

public setName(String dogName){

name=dogName;
}

public String getName(){

return name;
}
}

public class CreateDog {

public static void main (String args[]){
Dog myDog = new Dog();
}
} 9
 Class & Methods

Methods Invocation
 Invoked as operations on objects/Class using the dot ( . ) operator

reference.method(arguments)
 “Reference” can either be the class name or an object reference belonging to
the class
 Inside the class: “reference” can be ommitted

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 Class & Methods

Methods Overloading
 A class can have more than one method with the same
name as long as they have different parameter list.
public class Pencil {
. . .
public void setPrice (float newPrice) {
price = newPrice;
}
public void setPrice (Pencil p) {
price = p.getPrice();
}
}

 How does the compiler know which method you’re invoking? —

compares the number and type of the parameters and uses the
matched one 11
 Class & Methods

Methods – Parameter Value

 Parameters are always passed by value.
public void method1 (int a) {
a = 6;
}

public void method2 ( ) {

int b = 3;
method1(b); // now b = ?
// b = 3
}

• When the parameter is an object reference, it is the object

reference, not the object itself, getting passed.

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Method Example – (Parameter is Object Reference)
class PassRef{
plainPencil
public static void main(String[] args) {
Pencil plainPencil = new Pencil("PLAIN"); color: PLAIN
System.out.println("original color: " +
plainPencil.color); plainPencil p

paintRed(plainPencil); color: PLAIN

plainPencil p
System.out.println("new color: " +
plainPencil.color); color: RED
}
plainPencil p
public static void paintRed(Pencil p) {
color: RED NULL
p.color = "RED";
p = null;
- If you change any field of the object which the parameter refers to, the object is changed for
}
every variable which holds a reference to this object 13
}
- You can change which object a parameter refers to inside a method without affecting the original
reference which is passed
- What is passed is the object reference, and it’s passed in the manner of “PASSING BY VALUE”!
 Class & Methods

Accessor & Mutator Methods

 Accessor methods are those which returns information to the caller about the
state of the object; they provide access to information about the state of object

 Accessor usually contains the return statement in order to pass back that
information.

getName()

 Mutator method is one that change the state of an object.

 The most basic form of object is one that takes a single parameter whose
value is used to directly overwrite what is stored in the object’s field.

setName()
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 Class & Methods

Accessor Methods

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 Class & Methods

Mutator Methods

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