Abstract Classes

•Unlike classes, these cannot be instantiated.

•Like classes, they introduce types. Like classes, they
introduce types.
Why use them? Why use them?
• Because there is a set of common features and
implementation for all derived classes but......
• We want to prevent users from handling objects that are
too generic
• We cannot give a full implementation for the class
Problem:

Students are either undergraduate, PhD or MsC

We want to guarantee that nobody creates a Student object.
The application always creates a specific kind of Student.

The solution:
Declare Student as abstract.

Why have the Student class in the first place?

A common implementation of common aspects of all
students. (e.g. setLogin and and getLogin ())
A place holder in my hierarchy that corresponds to a
significant concept in my problem domain
To handle all students independently of their subclass using type
Student and polymorphism.
public abstract class Shape
{
public abstract double area();
}
class Circle extends Shape
{
double r;
public Circle() { r = 1.0; }
public Circle(double r) { this.r = r; }
public double area() { return 3.1459 * r * r; }
}
class Rectangle extends Shape
{double w, h;
public Rectangle() { w = 0.0; h = 0.0; }
public Rectangle(double w, double h) { this.w = w; this.h = h; }
public double area() { return w * h; }
}
In main method
Shape[] shapes = new Shape[3]; // Create an array to hold shapes.
shapes[0] = new Circle(2.0); // Fill in the array...
shapes[1] = new Rectangle(1.0, 3.0);
shapes[2] = new Rectangle(4.0, 2.0);
double total_area = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < shapes.length; i++) total_area += shapes[i].area();