CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2011/ch1 1i cl

Introduction

In O-o languages Object-oriented languages, method is a subroutine that associates with the the class and defines the behaviors performed by the instances of the class. A ancestor class may has its descendant classes which inherit all its methods' propertiess(name,return type,etc). Method reimplementation is required when the decendent class needs to change the behavior of a method which was already implemented by the ancestor class, and it is more efficient to do so other than writing a new method. In different O-o languages, the ways to require or allow a class to reimplement methods are very different. So it is important for us to know how different languages handle the reimplementation and what are the advantages and disadvantages of them.

Reimplementation in different O-o languages

C++

There are two ways that C++ can re-implement methods in descendant classes, one is Overridden method, which is very similar with Java in overriding and overloading. The other is to re-implement methods by virtual function. Although the characteristic of virtual function can also be found in other languages such as Java, but in C++, virtual function is an important way to achieve polymorphism in C++.

Overridden

Quite similar to Java, the overridden in C++ has features as follows:

1, the functions should be in different classes, class A and subclass of A.

2, the name of functions should be the same.

3, the parameters of functions should be the same.

4, keyword” virtual” should be appeared in base class.

An example is explained as follows:

class Dog {
public:
	Dog(char* nm, int s):name(name),size(s){}
	virtual void print() const;
private:
	char* name;
	int size;
};

void Dog::print() const{  // print() method of base class
	std::cout<<”Name = ” << this->name << “; Size = ” << this->size;
}

class Dog_large: public Dog {
public:
	Dog_large(char * nm, int s, int t) : Dog(nm,s), type(t) {}
	virtual void print() const;

private:
	int type;
};

void Dog_large::print() const{
	Dog::print();
	Std::cout<<”; Type = ” << this-> type;
}

The main method will call the print method in class Dog and class Dog_car separately.

Int main(int argc, char** argv) {
	Dog dog_test(“Bart”, 11);
        Dog_test.print();
        //outputs:
        //Name = Bart; Size = 11

        Dog_large dog_large_test(“Lufu”,”17”,”11”);
        //the pointer to the most overridden method in the vtable in on Dog_car::print
        dog_large_test.print();// but this call does not illustrate overriding
        static_cast<Dog&>(dog_large_test).print(); // this one does
        //output
        // Name = Bart; Size = 11;Type = 11
}

Virtual method

To define a virtual method in C++, the virtual keyword should be added before the declaration of the method. This method’s behavior can be changed or we say overridden within an inheriting class by a function with the same signature. Although virtual method also exists in other programming language, this is an important way to achieve polymorphism in C++.

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

class Animal {
    public:
        virtual void eat() const { 
            std::cout << "I eat like a generic Animal." << std::endl; 
        }
        virtual ~Animal() { 
        }
};
 
class Wolf : public Animal {
    public:
        void eat() const { 
            std::cout << "I eat like a wolf!" << std::endl; 
        }
        virtual ~Wolf() { 
        }
};
 
class Fish : public Animal {
    public:
        void eat() const { 
            std::cout << "I eat like a fish!" << std::endl; 
        }
        virtual ~Fish() { 
        }
};
 
class GoldFish : public Fish {
    public:
        void eat() const { 
            std::cout << "I eat like a goldfish!" << std::endl; 
        }
        virtual ~GoldFish() { 
        }
};
 
class OtherAnimal : public Animal {
        virtual ~OtherAnimal() { 
        }
};
 
int main() {
    std::vector<Animal*> animals;
    animals.push_back(new Animal());
    animals.push_back(new Wolf());
    animals.push_back(new Fish());
    animals.push_back(new GoldFish());
    animals.push_back(new OtherAnimal());
 
    for (std::vector<Animal*>::const_iterator it = animals.begin(); it != animals.end(); ++it) {
        (*it)->eat();
        delete *it;
    }
 
    return 0;
}
</source>

Output with the virtual function {{Cpp|Animal::eat()}}:
 I eat like a generic Animal.
 I eat like a wolf!
 I eat like a fish!
 I eat like a goldfish!
 I eat like a generic Animal.

Output, if {{Cpp|Animal::eat()}} were not declared as virtual:
 I eat like a generic Animal.
 I eat like a generic Animal.
 I eat like a generic Animal.
 I eat like a generic Animal.
 I eat like a generic Animal.


In C++, almost everything that has relevant to polymorphism is done by keyword “virtual”. In addition to this, virtual has other two functions.

1. Virtual base class

In base class A there are two subclass, B and C. D is inherited from B and C, but in D, there are two “A” as duplicate. Virtual base class is introduced to solve this problem. Shown as the example:

class B ：virtual public A 
class C ：virtual public A
class D: public B， public C 

2. Abstract class

Any class include: pure virtual function is called abstract class. Pure virtual function means no functionality in a function, and with a mark ‘=0’, as examples below:

void virtual foo() = 0;


The Virtual in C#

keyword” virtual ” can invoked virtual methods in both C++ and C#, these methods can be overridden in subclasses. However, it is in C# that the keyword “abstract” be introduced, to invoke virtual method without function. In C++, this job can be done by keyword” virtual”, we can it “pure virtual method”, class included pure virtual method can be called as “abstract class”.

In C#, Keyword “Virtual” can be added to “properties” and “methods” to indicate that the method in subclass can be rewrite. In general, keyword virtual in C# has been considerably impaired. In C#, the job in relevant of polymorphism has been taken by keyword” interface ” and “ abstract”, which was previously done by “virtual” in C++.

==<b>Java</b>==
===<i> General</i> ===
In Java, we can use variaty of approaches to do the reimplementation. We still have approaches like Overridden Methods and Virtual Methods the same as what we have in C++, while there are some other convinient approaches such as Abstract Methods and Overloading Methods which C++ doesn't support. And we can put @override tag on top of a overriding mothed to have the complier check if the method is succesfully overridden.

=== Overriding ===
If a sub class inherited a method from the super class, as long as the method is
not marked as final, the sub class can do overriding to reimplement the method
and change the functionality of that method. But the overriding method must follow 
the requirement of the super class's method. 

Here is an example.

<pre>
class human{

   public void move(){
      System.out.println("human can walk");
   }
}

class atheletes extends human{

   public void move(){
      System.out.println("atheletes can run");
   }
}

public class Test{

   public static void main(String args[]){
      human a = new human();
      human b = new atheletes(); 

      a.move();
      b.move();
   }
}

And the output result should be

"human can walk"
"atheletes can run"

Overloading

In Java, methods with the same name are allowed as long as they take different parameters. It is very convenient to have such kind of function because sometimes our method needs to take different types of parameters, and we don't want to have a list of different method names to confuse the users.

For example, while we have this method in the ancestor class

public int min(int n1, int n2) {
   int m;
   if (n1 < n2)
      m = n1;
   else
      m = n2;

   return m; 
}

We can still have this method in the descendant class

public int min(double n1, double n2){
   int m;
   if (n1 < n2)
      m = n1;
   else
      m = n2;

   return m; 
}

The program will invoke the right method depending on the type of the input.

But one important thing to remember is, only methods with different list of parameters are allowed to have the same names. We can not have overloaded methods based on different return types or modifiers. Different

Reference

"Tutorials Point.com" http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/index.htm

See also

The JavaTM Tutorials http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html