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Class Relationships in Java
| Types of Relationships
Class relationships in Java define the
special relationships among different
kinds of classes.
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For example, there is a special
relationship between a class named
Vehicle and a class Car: A Car is a type
of Vehicle.
There is a different kind of relationship
among classes Shape, Circle,
Rectangle, and Square. A Circle is a
type of Shape. A Rectangle is a type of
Shape.
When we design a major application or
program, we need to explore the
relationships among classes. It helps
us in a number of ways.
For example, suppose in an
application, we have classes with
common behaviors (methods) then we
can save effort by placing the common
behaviors (methods) within the
superclass.
Suppose some classes are not related
to each other, then we can assign
different programmers to implement
each of them, without worrying that
one of them will have to wait for the
other.
For this purpose, we need to learn
different types of relationships among
classes in Java. Relationships among
classes help to understand how
objects in a program work together
and communicate with each other.
Types of Relationship among
Classes in Java
There are three most common
relationships among classes in Java
that are as follows:
a. Dependence (“Uses-A”)
b. Association (“Has-A”)
c. Inheritance (“Is-A”)
Typesof
ClassRelationshipsinJava
RelationShip Has-A
Relationship Rela
Aggregation Composition
Association is further classified into
aggregation and composition that will
be understood in the further tutorial in
detail.
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Let’s understand these three
relationships among classes one by
one.
Dependence (Uses-A)
Relationship in Java
When we create an object of a class
inside a method of another class, this
relationship is called dependence
relationship in Java, or simply Uses-A
relationship.
In other words, when a method of a
class uses an object of another class, it
is called dependency in java. It is the
most obvious and most general
relationship in java.
Look at the below figure where a
method display() of class B uses an
object of class A. So, we can say that
class A depends on another class B if it
uses an object of class A.
If several classes of an application
program depend on each other, then
we say that the coupling between
classes is high.
It is a good programming practice to
minimize the dependency between
classes (i.e., coupling) because too
many dependencies make an
application program difficult to
manage.
On the other hand, if there are few
dependencies between classes, then
we say that the coupling between
classes is low.
Why does coupling matter?
If a class changes its behavior in the
next release of the application
program, all the classes that depend
on it may also be affected. In this
situation, we will need to update all the
coupled classes.
Therefore, if the coupling between
classes will be low, we can easily
manage them. Thus, we must remove
unnecessary coupling between
classes.
Association (“Has-A”)
Relationship in Java
Association is another fundamental
relationship between classes that is
informally known as “Has-A”
relationship.
When an object of one class is created
as data member inside another class, it
is called association relationship in
java or simply Has-A relationship.
Look at the above figure where an
object of class A is created as data
member inside another class B. This
relationship is known as Has-A
relationship. It is easy to understand
and makes a stronger form of
dependency.
We will learn Has-A relationship in
more detail in the next tutorial.
Inheritance (“Is-A”)
Relationship in Java
Inheritance represents Is-a relationship
in Java. It establishes a relationship
between a more general class (known
as superclass) and a more specialized
class (known as subclass).
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In other words, Is-A relationship
defines the relationship between two
classes in which one class extends
another class.
Look at the above figure where a class
B makes a relationship with class A by
the keyword “extends” and can inherit
data members from class A.
For more detail, go to this tutorial:
Inheritance in Java | Example, Use,
Advantage
UML Notation in Java
UML stands for Unified Modeling
Language. It is an international
standard notation. Many Programmers
use this notation to draw classes
diagram that explains the relationship
between classes.
There is a number of tools available for
drawing UML diagrams. A table in the
below figure shows the UML notation
for class relationships in Java.
Hope that this tutorial has covered
almost all the important points related
to types of class relationships in
Java with the following diagrams. I
hope that you will have understood this
simple topic.
Thanks for reading!!!
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Core Java
Dependency (Uses-A) Relationship
in Java, Java Class Relationships
Java Tutorials
Java Introduction +
Basics of Java +
Java Class and Object +
Java Data types and Variables +
Java Operators +
Decision Making, Branching, Looping +
Java Packages +
Java Methods +
Java Constructor +
Java Modifiers +
Blocks in Java +
Java Static and Final Keywords +
Inner Classes in Java +
OOPs Concepts in Java +
Java Encapsulation +
Inheritance in Java +
Java Super and This keywords +
Java Overloading +
Java Overriding +
Java Abstraction +
Java Polymorphism +
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