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Java Java Objects Meet Objects Creating Classes

Posted by Dervin Buckery
Dervin Buckery
425 Points

Behavior vs State

I am having trouble understanding what exactly state and behavior is. Can someone please explain and provide an example or reference so I can gain an better understanding?

Please and thank you!

1 Answer

Justin Horner
STAFF
Justin Horner
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Justin Horner
Justin Horner
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Hello Dervin,

The example I often use to describe State and Behavior of objects is a vehicle. A vehicle has state that it can indicate to you, like how much gas is in the tank. As the driver, you may make a decision based on the state, like knowing when it's time to stop and refill at the nearest gas station.

Then the car has behavior that you control as a user, like acceleration. You instruct the car to accelerate using the pedal, but it's a behavior of the car to accelerate. This would be in the form of some function/method of the class like Accelerate();.

Which brings us to another form of state - is the car moving/accelerating? Again, this is something that an object could provide as a property to let you know the current state of the car movement.

I hope this helps.