CPS 343/543 Lecture notes: Message passing, dynamic binding, and reflection

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Most central motif of OOP

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What is an object?

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• occupy space
• can be addressed only using a defined interface
• can be thought of as an abstraction of a computer

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History of OOP

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• Simula-67 was the origin of the ideas of object-oriented programming
• though the ideas blossomed through Smalltalk
• object-oriented LISP: LOOPS, FLAVORS [PLP] p. 518

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Pure OOP

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• these languages have imperative and object-oriented features
• in pure OO languages everything is an object, including classes, primitives, operators, and so on

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Basic characteristics of class definitions

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• private variables
• member functions
• friends are bad

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Message to method binding

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• a method in the class to which the reference variable pointing to the receiver was declared to be an instance of (static binding), or
• a method in the class to which the receiver is an instance of at run-time (dynamic binding).

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Dynamic binding

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• in the context of OOP typically refers to the binding of methods to messages
• methods varying dynamically entails much of the power of the OO approach
• main source of power in an OO language
• search for method (code body) to bind to a message starts from the class to which the receiver currently (i.e., at run-time) is an instance of, and and proceeds up the class inheritance hierarchy from there (static binding initiates the search from the class to which the reference variable pointing to the receiver was declared to be an instance of)
• if no method found anywhere, a run-time error (method not found) is reported and this is typically the only error in a Smalltalk program ever detected and reported
• example:

  Mammal m;
  Cow c;
  
  if (user input)
     m = new Cow;
  
     // if static binding used, run method in class Mammal bound to run message here
     // if dynamic binding used, run method in class Cow bound to run message here
     m.run
  else
     c = new Cow;
     c.run
  

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Why dynamic binding?

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• `to allow software systems to be more easily extended during both development and maintenance' [COPL] p. 461
• allows dynamic polymorphism, consider sorting (written in a general way)
• obviates need for abstract classes (e.g., Fruit class, peel method)
• while other forms of dynamism in languages tend to be compromise efficiency in the run-time system, dynamic binding involves little overhead

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Dynamic vs. static binding

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• advantages of each?
• disadvantages of each?

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Message to method binding in languages

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• Smalltalk
  • dynamic by default
  • by sending a message to super we can initiate the search (for the method to bind to the message) in the parent class of the class to which the sender belongs (i.e., like sending a message to self with a different entry point for the search (not quite static binding))
• Java and Eiffel
  • dynamic by default
  • in Java, preface method with final qualifier to prevent any subclass from overriding it
  • in Eiffel, preface method with frozen qualifier to prevent any subclass from overriding it
• C++
  • static by default (why?)
  • preface method with virtual qualifier for dynamic binding; the search for the method to bind to the message starts in the class which defines the method prefaced with the virtual qualifier and proceeds down the inheritance hierarchy from there to the class to which the receiver object belongs
• Objective-C, Modula-3, Python, and Ruby use dynamic binding for all methods
• Simula, C# and Ada 95 use static binding by default and support dynamic binding as an option

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Dynamic binding ambiguity

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• Smalltalk: manual dynamic allocation, automatic deallocation
• Java: manual dynamic allocation, automatic deallocation
• C++: manual dynamic allocation, manual deallocation

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Polymorphism in object-orientation

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• subtype polymorphism (through inheritance, dynamic binding, and dynamic method dispatch): `the ability to use a derived class in a context that expects its base class' [PLP] p. 498
• explicit parametric polymorphism (also referred to as generics) supports abstraction over unrelated types

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Generics

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• in Java, `single copy of the code can generally be shared by every instance of a generic' [PLP] p. 507
• in C++ achieved by the compiler generating `multiple copies of the polymorphic code, one specialized for each needed concrete type' [PLP] p. 507

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Abstract classes

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• a abstract method has no body (definition)
  • sometimes called a pure virtual method, especially in the context of C++
  • provides a hook for dynamic binding
• any class which has an abstract method is an abstract class
• an interface is a class with no fields or concrete methods (i.e., only abstract methods)

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Reflection

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• the process of reasoning about and/or acting upon oneself
• a way to inspect or modify a program while it is running
• two aspects
  • introspection (or read-only reflection): the ability for a program to observe and therefore reason about its own state
  • intercession: the ability for a program to modify its own execution state or alter its own interpretation or meaning
• Java supports read-only reflection (e.g., which methods does this class have?)

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References

[COPL]	R.W. Sebesta. Concepts of Programming Languages. Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA, Sixth edition, 2003.
[EOPL]	D.P. Friedman, M. Wand, and C.T. Haynes. Essentials of Programming Languages. MIT Press, Second edition, 2001.
[PLP]	M.L. Scott. Programming Language Pragmatics. Morgan Kaufmann, Amsterdam, Second edition, 2006.
[PLPP]	K.C. Louden. Programming Languages: Principles and Practice. Brooks/Cole, Pacific Grove, CA, Second edition, 2002.