Unit V

Object Oriented Programming

 Programming Paradigms-monolithic, procedural, structured and object oriented,
 Features of Object oriented programming-classes, objects, methods and message passing,
inheritance, polymorphism, containership, reusability, delegation, data abstraction and
encapsulation.
 Classes and Objects: classes and objects, class method and self object, class variables and
object variables, public and private members, class methods.

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Programming Paradigm

 Monolithic Programming
 Procedural Programming
 Structured Programming
 Object oriented Programming

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 Monolithic Programming
Programs written using monolithic programming languages such as
assembly language and BASIC consist of global data and sequential code.
The global data can be accessed and modified (knowingly or mistakenly)
from any part of the program, thereby, posing a serious threat to its
integrity.
Monolithic programs have just one program module as such
programming languages do not support the concept of subroutines.
Therefore, all the actions required to complete a particular task are
embedded within the same application itself. This not only makes the size
of the program large but also makes it difficult to debug and maintain.

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 Procedural Programming
In procedural languages, a program is divided into n number of subroutines that
access global data.To avoid repetition of code, each subroutine performs a well-
defined task. A subroutine that needs the service provided by another subroutine can
call that subroutine. Therefore, with ‘jump’, ‘Go To’, and ‘call’ instructions, the
sequence of execution of instructions can be altered.
Advantages
• The only goal is to write correct programs.
• Programs were easier to write as compared to monolithic programming.
Disadvantages
• Writing programs is complex.
• No concept of reusability.
• Requires more time and effort to write programs.
• Programs are difficult to maintain. 4

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 Structured Programming
Structured programming, also referred to as modular programming.
Advantages
Efficient, correct programs that are easy to understand, debug and change.
• Modules enhance programmer’s productivity.
Many programmers can work on a single, large program
• A structured program takes less time to be written than other programs. • Each
module performs a specific task.
• Each module has its own local data.
First to introduce the concept of functional abstraction.
Disadvantages
• Not data-centered.
• Global data is shared and therefore may get inadvertently modified. 5

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 Object Oriented Programming (OOP)
In the object oriented paradigm, the list and the associated operations are treated as one entity known as an
object.

The striking features of OOP include the following:

• The programs are data centered.
• Programs are divided in terms of objects and not procedures.
• Functions that operate on data are tied together with the data.
• Data is hidden and not accessible by external functions.
• New data and functions can be easily added as and when required.
• Follows a bottom-up approach for problem solving.
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 Features Object Oriented Programming (OOP)
 Classes
 Objects
 Method and Message Passing
 Inheritance
 Polymorphism
 Containership
 Reusability
 Delegation
 Data Abstraction
 Encapsulation

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 Classes, Objects, and Methods
A class is used to describe something in the world, such as occurrences, things,
external entities, and so on. A class provides a template or a blueprint that
describes the structure and behavior of a set of similar objects. Once we have
the definition for a class, a specific instance of the class can be easily created.
A class can have multiple instances or objects. Every object contains some data
and procedures.They are also called methods.
A method is a function associated with a class. It defines the operations that
the object can execute when it receives a message. In OOP language, only
methods of the class can access and manipulate the data stored in an instance
of the class (or object).
Two objects can communicate with each other through messages. An object
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asks another object to invoke one of its methods by sending it a message.

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 Inheritance
Inheritance is a concept of OOP in which a new class is created from an existing
class. The new class, often known as a sub-class, contains the attributes and methods
of the parent class
The new class, known as sub-class or derived class, inherits the attributes and
behavior of the pre-existing class, which is referred to as super-class or parent class.
The inheritance relationship of sub- and super classes generates a hierarchy.
Therefore, inheritance relation is also called ‘is-a’ relation. A sub-class not only has all
the states and behaviors associated with the super-class but has other specialized
features (additional data or methods) as well.
The main advantage of inheritance is the ability to reuse the code. When we want a
specialized class, we do not have to write the entire code for that class from scratch.
We can inherit a class from a general class and add the specialized code for the sub- 9

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 Polymorphism, Containership and Reusability
Polymorphism refers to having several different forms. It is related to methods. Polymorphism is a concept that
enables the programmers to assign a different meaning or usage to a method in different contexts. Polymorphism
can also be applied to operators. For example, we know that operators can be applied only on basic data types that
the programming language supports. Therefore, a + b will give the result of adding a and b. If a = 2 and b = 3, then a
+ b = 5. When we overload the + operator to be used with strings, then Fraction1 + Fraction2 adds two fractional
numbers and returns the result.
Containership is the ability of a class to contain object(s) of one or more classes as member data. For example,
class One can have an object of class Two as its data member. This would allow the object of class One to call the
public functions of class Two. Here, class One becomes the container, whereas class Two becomes the contained
class. Containership is also called composition.
Reusability means developing codes that can be reused either in the same program or in different programs.
Python gives due importance to building programs that are reusable. Reusability is attained through inheritance,
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 Data Abstraction and Encapsulation

Data abstraction refers to the process by which data and functions are defined in such a way that only
essential details are revealed and the implementation details are hidden. The main focus of data abstraction
is to separate the interface and the implementation of a program.

Data encapsulation, also called data hiding, is the technique of packing data and functions into a single
component (class) to hide implementation details of a class from the users. Users are allowed to execute
only a restricted set of operations (class methods) on the data members of the class. Therefore,
encapsulation organizes the data and methods into a structure that prevents data access by any function (or
method) that is not specified in the class.This ensures the integrity of the data contained in the object.

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Classes and Objects

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 Classes and Objects
Classes and objects are the two main aspects of object oriented programming. In fact, a class is the basic
building block in Python. A class creates a new type and object is an instance (or variable) of the class. Classes
provides a blueprint or a template using which objects are created. In fact, in Python, everything is an object or
an instance of some class. For example, all integer variables that we define in our program are actually
instances of class int. Similarly, all string variables are objects of class string. Recall that we had used string
methods using the variable name followed by the dot operator and the method name. We have already
studied that we can find out the type of any object using the type() function.

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 Creating Objects
Once a class is defined, the next job is to create an object (or instance) of that class.The object can then access class
variables and class methods using the dot operator (.). The syntax to create an object is given as,

Creating an object or instance of a class is known as class instantiation. From the syntax, we can see that class
instantiation uses function notation. Using the syntax, an empty object of a class is created.Thus, we see that
in Python, to create a new object, call a class as if it were a function. The syntax for accessing a class member through
the class object is

Example:

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 Data Abstraction and Hiding through Classes
Classes provide methods to the outside world to provide the functionality of the object or to manipulate the
object's data. Any entity outside the world does not know about the implementation details of the class or
that method.
Data encapsulation, also called data hiding organizes the data and methods into a structure that prevents
data access by any function (or method) that is not specified in the class. This ensures the integrity of the data
contained in the object.
Encapsulation defines different access levels for data variables and member functions of the class. These
access levels specifies the access rights for example,
• Any data or function with access level public can be accessed by any function belonging to any class. This is
the lowest level of data protection.
• Any data or function with access level private can be accessed only by the class in which it is declared. This
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is
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 Class Method And Self Argument
Class methods (or functions defined in the class) are exactly same as ordinary
functions that we have been defining so far with just one small difference. Class
methods must have the first argument named as self. This is the first argument
Example:
that is added to the beginning of the parameter list. Moreover, you do not pass a
value for this parameter when you call the method. Python provides its value
automatically. The self argument refers to the object itself. That is, the object
that has called the method. This means that even if a method that takes no
arguments, should be defined to accept the self. Similarly, a function defined to
accept one parameter will actually take two- self and the parameter, so on and
so forth.
Since, the class methods uses self, they require an object or instance of the class 16

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 The __init__() Method (The Class Constructor)
The __init__() method has a special significance in Python classes. The __init__() method is automatically
executed when an object of a class is created. The method is useful to initialize the variables of the class
object. Note the __init__() is prefixed as well as suffixed by double underscores.
Example:

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 Class Variables And Object Variables
Basically, these variables are of two types- class variables and object variables. Class variables are owned by the
class and object variables are owned by each object. What this specifically means can be understood using
following points.
• If a class has n objects, then there will be n separate copies of the object variable as each object will have its
own object variable.
• The object variable is not shared between objects.
• A change made to the object variable by one object will not be reflected in other objects.
If a class has one class variable, then there will be one copy only for that variable. All the objects of that class
will share the class variable.
• Since there exists a single copy of the class variable, any change made to the class variable by an object will
be reflected to all other objects. 18

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Class Variables And Object Variables - Example

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 The __del__() Method
The __del__() method does just the opposite work. The __del__() method is automatically called when an
object is going out of scope. This is the time when object will no longer be used and its occupied resources
are returned back to the system so that they can be reused as and when required. You can also explicitly do
the same using the del keyword.
Example:

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 Other Special Methods
• __repr__(): __ The __repr__() function is a built-in function with syntax repr(object). It returns a string
representation of an object.The function works on any object, not just class instances.
• __cmp__():The __cmp__() function is called to compare two class objects.
• __len__(): The __len__() function is a built-in function that has the syntax, len(object). It returns the length of
an object.

Example:

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 Public and Private Data Members
Public variables are those variables that are defined in the class and can be accessed from anywhere in the
program, of course using the dot operator. Private variables, on the other hand, are those variables that are
defined in the class with a double score prefix (__). These variables can be accessed only from within the class
and from nowhere outside the class.
Example:

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 Private Methods
Like private attributes, you can even have private methods in your class. Usually, we keep those methods as
private which have implementation details. So like private attributes, you should also not use private method
from anywhere outside the class. However, if it is very necessary to access them from outside the class, then
they are accessed with a small difference. A private method can be accessed using the object name as well as
the class name from outside the class. The syntax for accessing the private method in such a case would be.
objectname._classname__privatemethodname

Example:

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 Calling a Class Method from Another Class Method

Example:

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 Built-in Functions To Check, Get, Set And Delete Class Attributes
hasattr(obj,name):The function is used to check if an object possess the attribute or not.
getattr(obj, name[, default]): The function is used to access or get the attribute of object. Since getattr() is a
built-in function and not a method of the class, it is not called using the dot operator. Rather, it takes the
object as its first parameter. The second parameter is the name of the variable as a string, and the optional
third parameter is the default value to be returned if the attribute does not exist. If the attribute name does
not exist in the object's namespace and the default value is also not specified, then an exception will be raised.
Note that, getattr(obj, 'var') is same as writing obj.var. However, you should always try to use the latter variant.
setattr(obj,name,value): The function is used to set an attribute of the object. If attribute does not exist, then
it would be created. The first parameter of the setattr() function is the object, the second parameter is the
name of the attribute and the third is the new value for the specified attribute.
delattr(obj, name): The function deletes an attribute. Once deleted, the variable is no longer a class or object
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Built-in Functions - Example

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 Built-in Class Attributes
.__dict__: The attributes gives a dictionary containing the class's or Example:
object's (with whichever it is accessed) namespace.
.__doc__: The attribute gives the class documentation string if
specified. In case the documentation string is not specified, then the
attribute returns None.
.__name__:The attribute returns the name of the class.
.__module__: The attribute gives the name of the module in which
the class (or the object) is defined.
.__bases__: Used in inheritance to return the base classes in the
order of their occurrence in the base class list.
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 Garbage Collection (Destroying Objects)
Python performs automatic garbage collection. This means that it deletes all the objects (built-in types or user
defined like class objects) automatically that are no longer needed and that have gone out of scope to free the
memory space. The process by which Python periodically reclaims unwanted memory is known as garbage
collection.
Python's garbage collector runs in the background during program execution. It immediately takes action (of
reclaiming memory) as soon as an object's reference count reaches zero. For example,

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 Class Methods
Class methods are little different from these ordinary methods. First, they are called by a class (not by
instance of the class). Second, the first argument of the classmethod is cls not the self.
Class methods are widely used for factory methods, which instantiate an instance of a class, using different
parameters than those usually passed to the class constructor.
Example:

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 Static Methods
Any functionality that belongs to a class, but that does not require the object is placed in the static method.
Static methods are similar to class methods. The only difference is that a static method does not receive any
additional arguments.They are just like normal functions that belong to a class.
A static method does not use the self variable and is defined using a built-in function named staticmethod.
Python has a handy syntax, called a decorator, to make it easier to apply the staticmethod function to the
method function definition.The syntax for using the staticmethod decorator.

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Static Methods — Example

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