Object Oriented Programming

Advanced OOP Concepts 

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Objectives
• To understand the concept of reference variable and reference type
• To understand the difference between reference variable and object
• To understand the difference of heap and stack
• To use some utility classes provided by Java
• To understand the different type of class methods and variables.

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Reference Variables and Reference Types
• Simply, reference variable is an object and reference type is a class.
• Objects are accessed via object’s reference variables, which contain references to the objects.
• A class is a reference type, which means that a variable of the class type can reference an instance of
the class.
• The following statement declares the variable myCircle to be of the Circle type:
Circle myCircle;
• The next statement creates an object and assigns its reference to myCircle:
myCircle = new Circle();
• a single statement can combines the declaration of reference variable, the creation of an object, and
the assigning of an object reference as;
Circle myCircle = new Circle();

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Heap & Stack Memory
• Java Heap space is used by java runtime to allocate memory to Objects and JRE classes.
• Objects are created in heap memory but method frames are stored in Stack memory.
• Garbage Collection runs on the heap memory.
• Stack contains method specific values and references that are short-lived. Stack implements LIFO.
• Heap memory is shared by all threads of Java application but Stack memory is local to each thread.
• Size of heap space is much bigger than the small size of Stack in Java

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Heap & Stack Memory

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Reference Variables

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 Object or Reference variable
• An object reference variable that appears to hold an object actually contains a reference to that
object.
• Strictly speaking, an object reference variable and an object are different, but most of the time the
distinction can be ignored.
• Therefore, for simplicity, myCircle can be called a Circle object rather than use the longer-winded
description that myCircle is a variable that contains a reference to a Circle object.
• When you assign one object reference variable to another object reference variable, you are not
creating a copy of the object, you are only making a copy of the reference.

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Object or Reference variable
• Object reference variables act differently when an assignment takes place

• Is b2 being assigned a reference to a copy of the object referred to by b1?

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Variables of Primitive Types and Reference Types
• Every variable represents a memory location that holds a value.
• Declaring a variable is to tell the compiler what type of value the variable can hold.
• For a variable of a primitive type, the value is of the primitive type.
• For a variable of a reference type, the value is a reference to where an object is located.

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Variables of Primitive Types and Reference Types
• When you assign one variable to another, the other variable is set to the same value.
• For a variable of a primitive type, the real value of one variable is assigned to the other variable.
• For a variable of a reference type, the reference of one variable is assigned to the other variable.

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Garbage collection
• The object previously referenced by c1 is no longer useful and therefore is now known as garbage.
• Garbage occupies memory space, so the Java runtime system detects garbage and automatically
reclaims the space it occupies. This process is called garbage collection.
• If you know that an object is no longer needed, you can explicitly assign null to a reference variable
for the object. The JVM will automatically collect the space if the object is not referenced by any
variable.

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null
• If a data field of a reference type does not reference any object, the data field holds a special Java value,
null.

• null is a literal just like true and false. While true and false are Boolean literals, null is a literal for a
reference type.
• The default value of a data field is null for a reference type.
• Java assigns no default value to a local variable inside a method.

public class Test {

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NullPointerException
• NullPointerException is a common runtime error.
• It occurs when you invoke a method on a reference variable with a null value.
• Make sure you assign an object reference to the variable before invoking the method through the
reference variable.

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What is wrong with each of the following programs?

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Using Classes from the Java Library
• The Java API contains a rich set of classes for developing Java programs.
• The Object class is the parent class of all the classes in java by default. It is the topmost class of java.
• Different classes are frequently used by Java developers, some of which are;
– The Date Class
– The Random Class
– The String Class
– Boolean
– Integer

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The Date Class
• Java provides a system-independent encapsulation of date and time in the java.util.Date class.
• The no-arg constructor of the Date class can be used to create an instance for the current date
and time.

Date date = new Date();

• The getTime() method of Date class returns the elapsed time since January 1, 1970, GMT, and
the toString() method return the date and time as a string.
• The Date class has another constructor, Date(long elapseTime), which can be used to construct
a Date object.

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The Date Class

Output:

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The Random Class
• Just like random function of Math class, there is another class called Random Class that can be used
to generate random numbers.
• The class can generate a random int, long, double, float, and boolean value.
• The random object can be created with no-arg as well as parameterized constructor.
• The no-arg constructor creates a Random object using the current elapsed time as its seed.
• Random object can be created by specifying a seed .
• A seed is a number used to initialize a random number generator.
• If two Random objects have the same seed, they will generate identical sequences of numbers.

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The Random Class

Output:

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Instance Variables and Methods
• The data field in the class is known as an instance variable.
• The method defines in the class are instance method.
• Instance variable or Instance method are dependent on a specific instance.
• Instance variable or instance method are non-static that means it cannot be access with class name
only.
• It needs an object or instance to get accessed or invoked.
• An instance variable is tied to a specific instance of the class; it is not shared among objects of the
same class.

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static Variables and Methods
• A static variable is shared by all objects of the class.
static int radius;
• Static variables (also called class variable) store values for the variables in a common memory
location. Because of this common location, if one object changes the value of a static variable, all
objects of the same class are affected.
• Static methods can be called without creating an instance of the class.
static double getArea();
• A static method cannot access instance members of the class.
• Static members can be directly invoked by the class.
Example: Math.pow(3, 2.5).
• To declare a static variable or define a static method, put the modifier static in declaration.

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UML Notation
• Instance variables belong to the instances and have memory storage independent of one another.
Static variables are shared by all the instances of the same class.
• static variables or methods are underlined in the UML diagram.

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static Constants
• Constants in a class are shared by all objects of the class.
• Constants should be declared as final static.
• For example:
The constant PI in the Math class is defined as:
static final double PI = 3.14159265358979323846;

• If any variable is declared as final, the value of final variable cannot be changed. It will be a constant.
• Changing the value of such variable will give compile time error.

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Instance vs. static
• An instance method can invoke an instance or static method and access an instance or
static data field.
• A static method can invoke a static method and access a static data field. However, a
static method cannot invoke an instance method or access an instance data field, since
static methods and static data fields don’t belong to a particular object.
• The relationship between static and instance members is summarized in the following
diagram:

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 Representing in Class diagram
Circle
Attributes are usually listed in the form:
attributeName : Type

• Static attributes.
- noOfObjects : int attributeName : Type

• Static methods are underlined

Object Oriented Programming

Static Members
Program

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