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Java Java Objects (Retired) Meet Objects Creating New Objects

Objects, Classes and Parameters.

I am new to java, and I'm having a bit of confusion concerning objects and classes. I think I might just need it reworded a bit. What is a class? What is an object? Why and how do we use them?

1 Answer

A class is an object factory. It defines the variables and methods understood by an instance of that class. When we declare a class, we are actually declaring two thing: The class itself and the objects that it is responsible for allocating at runtime. An "object" refers to a particular instance of the class.

If you're also confused on the difference between a parameter and an argument, let me break it down:

public class Helper {
  public static String myString(String example) {
    return example;
  }
}

Above, the myString method takes a String as a parameter. A parameter is the name of a piece of information that is passed into a method. Once this method is called, it will return whatever String is passed in as an argument.

public class Example {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    String test = Helper.myString("Jacob");
    System.out.println(test);
  }
}

To illustrate this, I've passed in the the argument "Jacob" into the myString method. It will store this value into a String named test.