Chapter 16. Serializing and Examining Objects
An essential concept of object-oriented programming is the representation of data. In an object-oriented language such as Java, an object represents two things:
Behavior—. The things an object can do
Attributes—. The data that differentiates the object from other objects
Combining behavior and attributes is a departure from other programming languages where a program is defined as a set of instructions that manipulate data. The data is a separate thing, as in word processing software. Most word processors are considered programs used to create and edit text documents.
Object-oriented programming blurs the line between program and data. An object in a language such as Java encapsulates both instructions ...
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