M13 Additional Topics

derived class/subclass

refers to a class that is derived from another class called a base class (or superclass)

inheritance

a derived class inherits all the properties of the base class

extends

keyword to create a derived class from a base class

base class

a class that can be derived from/extended

@Override annotation

when above a method tells the compiler to verify the method overrides a base class method

override

when a derived class has a method that has the same name, parameters and return type as the base class's method

Overloading

methods with the same name but different numbers and/or types of parameters.

super

keyword to refer to a parent class's members

Object class

the built-in base class for all other classes and it does not have a base class. All classes are ultimately derived from.

toString()

a common method to add to classes that returns a string representation of the objects fields.

equals(otherObject)

a common method that typically compares two objects to see if their fields are "equal". Object class's equals(otherObject) method simply compares both variables references.

polymorphism

which method to call depending on the arguments

compile-time polymorphism

method overloading is a form of this type of polymorphism

runtime polymorphism

the determination of which method to execute is determined at runtime

UML

Unified Modeling Language