9.7 Data Abstraction
Data abstraction involves the conception and use of a data structure as:
an interface, which is implementation-neutral and contains function declarations;
an implementation, which contains function definitions; and
an application, which is also implementation-neutral and contains invocations to functions in the implementation; the application is sometimes called the main program or client code.
The underlying implementation can change without disrupting the client code as long as the contractual signature of each function declaration in the interface remains unchanged. In this way, the implementation is hidden from the application. A data type developed this way is called an abstract data type (ADT). Consider a list abstract ...
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