Composition syntax
Composition has been used quite frequently up to this point in the book. You simply place object references inside new classes. For example, suppose you’d like an object that holds several String objects, a couple of primitives, and an object of another class. For the non-primitive objects, you put references inside your new class, but you define the primitives directly:
//: reusing/SprinklerSystem.java // Composition for code reuse. class WaterSource { private String s; WaterSource() { System.out.println("WaterSource()"); s = "Constructed"; } public String toString() { return s; } } public class SprinklerSystem { private String valve1, valve2, valve3, valve4; private WaterSource source = new WaterSource(); private int i; private float f; public String toString() { return "valve1 = " + valve1 + " " + "valve2 = " + valve2 + " " + "valve3 = " + valve3 + " " + "valve4 = " + valve4 + "\n" + "i = " + i + " " + "f = " + f + " " + "source = " + source; } public static void main(String[] args) { SprinklerSystem sprinklers = new SprinklerSystem(); System.out.println(sprinklers); } } /* Output: WaterSource() valve1 = null valve2 = null valve3 = null valve4 = null i = 0 f = 0.0 source = Constructed *///:
One of the methods defined in both classes is special: toString( ). Every non-primitive object has a toString( ) method, and it’s called in special situations when the compiler wants a String but it has an object. So in the expression in SprinklerSystem.toString( ):
"source = " + source;
the compiler sees you trying to add a String object ("source = ") to a WaterSource. Because you can only “add” a String to another String, it says “I’ll turn source into a String by calling toString( )!” After doing this it can combine the two Strings and pass the resulting String to System.out.println( ). Anytime you want to allow this behavior with a class you create, you need only write a toString( ) method.
Primitives that are fields in a class are automatically initialized to zero, as noted in the Everything Is an Object chapter. But the object references are initialized to null, and if you try to call methods for any of them, you’ll get an exception-a runtime error. Conveniently, you can still print a null reference without throwing an exception.
Inheritance syntax
Inheritance is an integral part of Java (and all OOP languages). It turns out that you’re always doing inheritance when you create a class, because unless you explicitly inherit from some other class, you implicitly inherit from Java’s standard root class Object.
The syntax for composition is obvious, but to perform inheritance there’s a distinctly different form. When you inherit, you say “This new class is like that old class.” You state this in code before the opening brace of the class body, using the keyword extends followed by the name of the base class. When you do this, you automatically get all the fields and methods in the base class. Here’s an example:
//: reusing/Detergent.java // Inheritance syntax & properties. import static net.mindview.util.Print.*; class Cleanser { private String s = "Cleanser"; public void append(String a) { s += a; } public void dilute() { append(" dilute()"); } public void apply() { append(" apply()"); } public void scrub() { append(" scrub()"); } public String toString() { return s; } public static void main(String[] args) { Cleanser x = new Cleanser(); x.dilute(); x.apply(); x.scrub(); print(x); } } public class Detergent extends Cleanser { // Change a method: public void scrub() { append(" Detergent.scrub()"); super.scrub(); // Call base-class version } // Add methods to the interface: public void foam() { append(" foam()"); } // Test the new class: public static void main(String[] args) { Detergent x = new Detergent(); x.dilute(); x.apply(); x.scrub(); x.foam(); print(x); print("Testing base class:"); Cleanser.main(args); } } /* Output: Cleanser dilute() apply() Detergent.scrub() scrub() foam() Testing base class: Cleanser dilute() apply() scrub() *///:~
This demonstrates a number of features. First, in the Cleanser append( ) method, Strings are concatenated to s using the += operator, which is one of the operators (along with ‘+’) that the Java designers “overloaded” to work with Strings.
Second, both Cleanser and Detergent contain a main( ) method. You can create a main( ) for each one of your classes; this technique of putting a main( ) in each class allows easy testing for each class. And you don’t need to remove the main( ) when you’re finished; you can leave it in for later testing.
Even if you have a lot of classes in a program, only the main( ) for the class invoked on the command line will be called. So in this case, when you say java Detergent, Detergent.main( ) will be called. But you can also say java Cleanser to invoke Cleanser.main( ), even though Cleanser is not a public class. Even if a class has package access, a public main() is accessible.
Here, you can see that Detergent.main( ) calls Cleanser.main( ) explicitly, passing it the same arguments from the command line (however, you could pass it any String array).
It’s important that all of the methods in Cleanser are public. Remember that if you leave off any access specifier, the member defaults to package access, which allows access only to package members. Thus, within this package, anyone could use those methods if there were no access specifier. Detergent would have no trouble, for example. However, if a class from some other package were to inherit from Cleanser, it could access only public members. So to allow for inheritance, as a general rule make all fields private and all methods public. (protected members also allow access by derived classes; you’ll learn about this later.) Of course, in particular cases you must make adjustments, but this is a useful guideline.
Cleanser has a set of methods in its interface: append( ), dilute( ), apply( ), scrub( ), and toString( ). Because Detergent is derived from Cleanser (via the extends keyword), it automatically gets all these methods in its interface, even though you don’t see them all explicitly defined in Detergent. You can think of inheritance, then, as reusing the class.
As seen in scrub( ), it’s possible to take a method that’s been defined in the base class and modify it. In this case, you might want to call the method from the base class inside the new version. But inside scrub( ), you cannot simply call scrub( ), since that would produce a recursive call, which isn’t what you want. To solve this problem, Java has the keyword super that refers to the “superclass” that the current class inherits. Thus the expression super.scrub( ) calls the base-class version of the method scrub( ).
When inheriting you’re not restricted to using the methods of the base class. You can also add new methods to the derived class exactly the way you put any method in a class: Just define it. The method foam( ) is an example of this.
In Detergent.main( ) you can see that for a Detergent object, you can call all the methods that are available in Cleanser as well as in Detergent (i.e., foam( )).
Delegation
A third relationship, which is not directly supported by Java, is called delegation. This is midway between inheritance and composition, because you place a member object in the class you’re building (like composition), but at the same time you expose all the methods from the member object in your new class (like inheritance). For example, a spaceship needs a control module:
//: reusing/SpaceShipControls.java public class SpaceShipControls { void up(int velocity) {} void down(int velocity) {} void left(int velocity) {} void right(int velocity) {} void forward(int velocity) {} void back(int velocity) {} void turboBoost() {} } ///:~
One way to build a spaceship is to use inheritance:
//: reusing/SpaceShip.java public class SpaceShip extends SpaceShipControls { private String name; public SpaceShip(String name) { this.name = name; } public String toString() { return name; } public static void main(String[] args) { SpaceShip protector = new SpaceShip("NSEA Protector"); protector.forward(100); } } ///:~
However, a SpaceShip isn’t really “a type of” SpaceShipControls, even if, for example, you “tell” a SpaceShip to go forward( ). It’s more accurate to say that a SpaceShip contains SpaceShipControls, and at the same time all the methods in SpaceShipControls are exposed in a SpaceShip. Delegation solves the dilemma:
//: reusing/SpaceShipDelegation.java public class SpaceShipDelegation { private String name; private SpaceShipControls controls = new SpaceShipControls(); public SpaceShipDelegation(String name) { this.name = name; } // Delegated methods: public void back(int velocity) { controls.back(velocity); } public void down(int velocity) { controls.down(velocity); } public void forward(int velocity) { controls.forward(velocity); } public void left(int velocity) { controls.left(velocity); } public void right(int velocity) { controls.right(velocity); } public void turboBoost() { controls.turboBoost(); } public void up(int velocity) { controls.up(velocity); } public static void main(String[] args) { SpaceShipDelegation protector = new SpaceShipDelegation("NSEA Protector"); protector.forward(100); } } ///:~
You can see how the methods are forwarded to the underlying controls object, and the interface is thus the same as it is with inheritance. However, you have more control with delegation because you can choose to provide only a subset of the methods in the member object.
Although the Java language doesn’t support delegation, development tools often do. The above example, for instance, was automatically generated using the JetBrains Idea IDE.
[Thinking in Java 165~] 클라스의 재사용