Programming Final Terms

Final Study material

Argument

The variable passed to a function

Call

A statement that contains a method name followed by parentheses.

Local

Variables, constants, and objects that are declared within a method and therefore have a scoped limited to that method.

Function Declaration

The first line of a function, which contains the function name, access level, and parameters, if any.

Function Parameters

the part of a function declaration that accepts values from the method call

Pass

giving data to a function declaration that accepts values from the method call. 

Pass by value

Passing the value of an argument of a function. The type of data passed depends on whether the argument is primitive or an object

Array 

A structure that can store many of the same kind of data together at once. Size can’t be changed.

List

A structure that can store many of the same kind of data, much like an array, which the main difference being that it’s size can be adjusted at any time.

Index out of range/ Index out of bounds

An exception thrown when an invalid array index is used.

Meaning that you have gone outside of the bounds of the list/array.

Dynamic Array

An array that varies in size at run time. You would set the size to a variable that can change at before it is created.

Elements

A data item in an array/list.

Index

The value associated with an element in an array/list. Index values begin at 0 and count up. EX: array[9] with #9 being the index

Linear Search

A way to search an array in which each element of the array is checked one after the other. Basically, in a single straight line.

Traversing

Iterating through elements of any arrays

Attribute

A variable that lives on an object. It has some assigned value associated with the object.

Object

Represents data that has attributes, functions/methods, and can be created. You can create several of them after it’s defined.

Class

Stores data within each instance of that class. Essentially, what you write to create an object and define its attributes and methods.

Null

The value stored in a reference variable when it does not reference an object (empty)

Instantiation

The process of creating an object

Constructor

A method in a class that has the same name as the class and is used by a client to create an object