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Polymorphism

  • Literally means ``many forms''.
  • A method can have many different forms of behavior.
  • Commonly used between a set of classes that have a common superclass.
  • The sender of a message does not have to know the type/class of the receiver.
  • A single operation or attribute may be defined upon more than one class and may take on different implementations in each of those classes.
  • An attribute may point to different objects at different times.


up previous next contents
Next: Abstraction with objects Up: Introduction to OO concepts Previous: Inheritance   Contents