With reference to UML diagrams, what is an interface? and can someone explain in more simpler words. I cant understand anything from googling it.
An interface is like a template design for a class that contains no data or implemetnation; only definitions for methods, properties etc. These are abstract and cannot be instantiated but can be inherited from at which point all specified methods etc must be implemented by the concrete class inheriting the interface.
An interface is a design item describing a behaviour.
Classes implementing the interface will/must behave according to its definition.
Interfaces are used to promote loose coupling and the base of many IoC patterns (Inversion of Control)
A Interface is just a description of a class nothing concrete.
You use it to create a new class "with the same description" without knowing the concrete implementation.
In one word: it's a contract. Every class that implements this contract (interface) will have to implement the methods defined on it.
Related
I have to do an UML class diagram for a project in which I implement an interface with abstract methods for RL algorithms. I implement several algorithms that implement an interface but implement additional methods depending on the algorithm. How can I capture that in an UML diagram? I have thought in including a box with the generic name "Algorithm" and the attributes and methods
"Algorithm specific attributes/methods", would that be correct in the UML framework?
A class should not inherit an interface but realize (aka implements) it. Graphically, you'll use the same notation than inheritance but with a dashed line:
Your case is a classic case of interface realization, as you'll find for example in a strategy pattern. The fact that you add other operations (aka methods) is completely normal and does not require anything special.
If you're using abstract classes instead of interfaces, then you may use inheritance:
https://dart.dev/guides/language/language-tour#implicit-interfaces
I've seen code that uses "implements", so I'm looking into "implements".
But I can't really tell the difference from extends by looking at the official docs.
Looking at the sample code in the official documentation (page above), it looks like it is just doing what it can do with extends with implements.
Then I wonder if it should use "extends".
I think I've understood about inheritance (extends) and mixins (with) so far.
The word "interface" is also mentioned in the Dart documentation, but there is a clear definition of "interface".
I can't even find where it is.
I don't have much knowledge about interfaces in other languages, so it's hard to get an image.
What exactly is the difference between inheritance and implementation?
Because of the difference, when do you use the inheritance "extends" and when do you use the implementation "implements"?
Is there somewhere in the sample that makes a clear difference?
Given class MyClass:
MyClass extends Foo is classic inheritance. MyClass is a Foo
MyClass implements Bar is declaring that the implementer conforms to the Bar interface. MyClass "looks" like a Bar
MyClass with Batz is "mixing" in the interface and implementation. MyClass "acts" like a Batz.
MyClass can implement and mixin as many interfaces as needed (some limitations apply) but can only extend from one interface.
Besides other explanations, dart does not let developers to use multiple inheritance so there can be only one extends, however there can be more than one implements.
Therefore a class can be subtype of only one class(except parents of parent class) but interfaces defines behaviour of the class which implements it and one class can have different behaviours.
A simple analogy is from animals. If we assume there is different behaviours for animals like swimming interface as ISwimmer, running interface as IRunner and flying interface as IFlyer. For example a Fish class is an Animal. Which makes it extends Animal class. Additionally a Fish has behaviour of swimming so it implements ISwimmer interface in that purpose.
If you just want to understand how they are different concept-wise then,
You extend a class. Think of it as you extended your father or your father is your base class.
You implement an interface(which is just a purely abstract class). Like Ferrari implements a car.
An interface cannot have an instance. For example - Have you seen any CAR? The answer is no, you have seen types of car i.e, Ford, Toyota which implements the CAR so the car acts as an interface which other companies or you can say, classes(Ferrari) implements.
You have to implement every feature of a car to be called a car that's why every method of an interface needs to be implemented and we say x "implements" y.
In extending you can override something and skip another , suppose your nose may look like your father but your ears do not.
Think of an interface as a skeleton or just an empty class.
I writing a small Snake game in Lazarus, and Lazarus complains when I write
type
ISegment = interface(IRenderable, IMover)
end;
When I'm trying to achieve is to make ISegment a combined interface, but it doesn't seem to work. Does Lazarus not support multiple interface inheritance?
There is no multiple inheritance supported in the language. A class cannot be derived from multiple base classes. An interface cannot be derived from multiple base interfaces.
What you can do however, is have a class that implements multiple interfaces. Like this:
type
TMyClass = class(TInterfacedObject, IFoo, IBar)
....
end;
It does, you just need a better reading skill to understand this (look at the syntax diagram, in the heritage part). class type identifier is not stated as optional, but implemented interface does. It's roughly read as:
"A class may extend a base class and implements as many interfaces as possible. When an interface is about to be implemented, the base class must also be specified. The other way around does not apply, you can perfectly have a class extends a base class without specifying any interface"
The answer is no, Pascal is not supposed to support multiple inheritance so I don't see why it should do a different thing for interfaces then
As explained in previous answer, you still can implement several interfaces in a class
Whenever I create an abstract class I tend to create an interface to go along with it and have other code refer to the interface and not the abstract class. Usually when I don't create an interface to start with I regret it (such as having to override all implimented methods to stub the class for unit testing or later down the line new classes don't need any of the implimentation and override everything also finding themselves unable to extend any other class).
At first I tried to distinguish when to use an interface and when to use an abstract class by considering is-a vs able-to but I still would end up suffering later down the line for not making an interface to start with.
So the question is when is it a good idea to only have an abstract class and no interface at all?
When you wish to "give" some base class functionality to derived classes but when this functionality is not sufficient to instantiate a usable class, then go for abstract classes.
When you wish that some classes completely implement a set of methods (a public contract), then it is a convenient to define such contract with interfaces and enforce them onto classes by making them inherit this interface.
In short:
With abstract classes you give some common base functionality to derived classes. No further actions are necessary unless abstract class has some stubs (which have to be implemented down there).
With interfaces you require derived classes to implement a set of functions and you do not pass along any implementation.
So the question is when is it a good idea to only have an abstract class and no interface at all?
When you do not wish to enforce any public contract (a set of methods/properties defined by an interface).
Also when you do not plan to use certain coding techniques like casting object to an interface type (run-time polymorphism) or limit allowed input (some method argument will only accept object of types which implement certain interfaces).
Well, the main case it is useful to have only an abstract class without any interface is to mark a certain type. It is useful to be able to check if an object "is-a" something. These interface "mark" an objet to be of a certain type. Depending on the language you use, different design patterns apply ...
These sort of abstract classes exist in java. You can also use them in C++ with RTTI.
my2c
I am looking at nServiceBus and came over this interface
namespace NServiceBus
{
public interface IMessage
{
}
}
What is the use of an empty interface?
Usually it's to signal usage of a class. You can implement IMessage to signal that your class is a message. Other code can then use reflection to see if your objects are meant to be used as messages and act accordingly.
This is something that was used in Java a lot before they had annotations. In .Net it's cleaner to use attributes for this.
#Stimpy77 Thanks! I hadn't thought of it that way.
I hope you'll allow me to rephrase your comment in a more general way.
Annotations and attributes have to be checked at runtime using reflection. Empty interfaces can be checked at compile-time using the type-system in the compiler. This brings no overhead at runtime at all so it is faster.
Also known as a Marker Interface:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marker_interface_pattern
In java Serializable is the perfect example for this. It defines no methods but every class that "implements" it has to make sure, that it is really serializable and holds no reference to things that cannot be serialized, like database connections, open files etc.
In Java, empty interfaces were usually used for "tagging" classes - these days annotations would normally be used.
It's just a way of adding a bit of metadata to a class saying, "This class is suitable for <this> kind of use" even when no common members will be involved.
Normally it's similar to attributes. Using attributes is a preferred to empty interfaces (at least as much as FxCop is aware). However .NET itself uses some of these interfaces like IRequiresSessionState and IReadOnlySessionState. I think there is performance loss in metadata lookup when you use attributes that made them use interfaces instead.
An empty interface acts simply as a placeholder for a data type no better specified in its interface behaviour.
In Java, the mechanism of the interface extension represents a good example of use. For example, let's say that we've the following
interface one {}
interface two {}
interface three extends one, two {}
Interface three will inherit the behaviour of 'one' and 'two', and so
class four implements three { ... }
has to specify the two methods, being of type 'three'.
As you can see, from the above example, empty interface can be seen also as a point of multiple inheritance (not allowed in Java).
Hoping this helps to clarify with a further viewpoint.
They're called "Mark Interfaces" and are meant to signal instances of the marked classes.
For example... in C++ is a common practice to mark as "ICollectible" objects so they can be stored in generic non typed collections.
So like someone over says, they're to signal some object supported behavior, like ability to be collected, serialized, etc.
Been working with NServiceBus for the past year. While I wouldn't speak for Udi Dahan my understanding is that this interface is indeed used as a marker primarily.
Though I'd suggest you ask the man himself if he'd had thoughts of leaving this for future extension. My bet is no, as the mantra seems to be to keep messages very simple or at least practically platform agnostic.
Others answer well on the more general reasons for empty interfaces.
I'd say its used for "future" reference or if you want to share some objects, meaning you could have 10 classes each implementing this interface.
And have them sent to a function for work on them, but if the interface is empty, I'd say its just "pre"-work.
Empty interfaces are used to document that the classes that implement a given interface have a certain behaviour
For example in java the Cloneable interface in Java is an empty interface. When a class implements the Cloneable interface you know that you can call run the clone() on it.
Empty interfaces are used to mark the class, at run time type check can be performed using the interfaces.
For example
An application of marker interfaces from the Java programming language is the Serializable interface. A class implements this interface to indicate that its non-transient data members can be written to an ObjectOutputStream. The ObjectOutputStream private method writeObject() contains a series of instanceof tests to determine writeability, one of which looks for the Serializable interface. If any of these tests fails, the method throws a NotSerializableException.
An empty interface can be used to classify classes under a specific purpose. (Marker Interface)
Example : Database Entities
public interface IEntity {
}
public class Question implements IEntity {
// Implementation Goes Here
}
public class Answer implements IEntity {
// Implementation Goes Here
}
For Instance, If you will be using Generic Repository(ex. IEntityRepository), using generic constraints, you can prevent the classes that do not implement the IEntity interface from being sent by the developers.