Specifying attributes and behaviors

We now have a grasp of some basic object-oriented terminology. Objects are instances of classes that can be associated with each other. An object instance is a specific object with its own set of data and behaviors; a specific orange on the table in front of us is said to be an instance of the general class of oranges. That's simple enough, but let's dive into the meaning of those two words, data and behaviors.

Data describes objects

Let's start with data. Data represents the individual characteristics of a certain object. A class can define specific sets of characteristics that are shared by all objects from that class. Any specific object can have different data values for the given characteristics. For example, the three oranges on our table (if we haven't eaten any) could each weigh a different amount. The orange class could have a weight attribute to represent that datum. All instances of the orange class have a weight attribute, but each orange has a different value for this attribute. Attributes don't have to be unique, though; any two oranges may weigh the same amount. As a more realistic example, two objects representing different customers might have the same value for a first name attribute.

Attributes are frequently referred to as members or properties. Some authors suggest that the terms have different meanings, usually that attributes are settable, while properties are read-only. In Python, the concept of read-only is rather pointless, so throughout this book, we'll see the two terms used interchangeably. In addition, as we'll discuss in Chapter 5, When to Use Object-Oriented Programming, the property keyword has a special meaning in Python for a particular kind of attribute.

In our fruit inventory application, the fruit farmer may want to know what orchard the orange came from, when it was picked, and how much it weighs. They might also want to keep track of where each Basket is stored. Apples might have a color attribute, and barrels might come in different sizes. Some of these properties may also belong to multiple classes (we may want to know when apples are picked, too), but for this first example, let's just add a few different attributes to our class diagram:

Depending on how detailed our design needs to be, we can also specify the type for each attribute. Attribute types are often primitives that are standard to most programming languages, such as integer, floating-point number, string, byte, or Boolean. However, they can also represent data structures such as lists, trees, or graphs, or most notably, other classes. This is one area where the design stage can overlap with the programming stage. The various primitives or objects available in one programming language may be different from what is available in another:

Usually, we don't need to be overly concerned with data types at the design stage, as implementation-specific details are chosen during the programming stage. Generic names are normally sufficient for design. If our design calls for a list container type, Java programmers can choose to use a LinkedList or an ArrayList when implementing it, while Python programmers (that's us!) might choose between the list built-in and a tuple.

In our fruit-farming example so far, our attributes are all basic primitives. However, there are some implicit attributes that we can make explicit—the associations. For a given orange, we might have an attribute referring to the basket that holds that orange.

Behaviors are actions

Now that we know what data is, the last undefined term is behaviors. Behaviors are actions that can occur on an object. The behaviors that can be performed on a specific class of object are called methods. At the programming level, methods are like functions in structured programming, but they magically have access to all the data associated with this object. Like functions, methods can also accept parameters and return values.

A method's parameters are provided to it as a list of objects that need to be passed into that method. The actual object instances that are passed into a method during a specific invocation are usually referred to as arguments. These objects are used by the method to perform whatever behavior or task it is meant to do. Returned values are the results of that task.

We've stretched our comparing apples and oranges example into a basic (if far-fetched) inventory application. Let's stretch it a little further and see whether it breaks. One action that can be associated with oranges is the pick action. If you think about implementation, pick would need to do two things:

• Place the orange in a basket by updating the Basket attribute of the orange
• Add the orange to the Orange list on the given Basket.

So, pick needs to know what basket it is dealing with. We do this by giving the pick method a Basket parameter. Since our fruit farmer also sells juice, we can add a squeeze method to the Orange class. When called, the squeeze method might return the amount of juice retrieved, while also removing the Orange from the Basket it was in.

The class Basket can have a sell action. When a basket is sold, our inventory system might update some data on as-yet unspecified objects for accounting and profit calculations. Alternatively, our basket of oranges might go bad before we can sell them, so we add a discard method. Let's add these methods to our diagram:

Adding attributes and methods to individual objects allows us to create a system of interacting objects. Each object in the system is a member of a certain class. These classes specify what types of data the object can hold and what methods can be invoked on it. The data in each object can be in a different state from other instances of the same class; each object may react to method calls differently because of the differences in state.

Object-oriented analysis and design is all about figuring out what those objects are and how they should interact. The next section describes principles that can be used to make those interactions as simple and intuitive as possible.