What Is A Class In Programming?

Table of contents

• Definition
• Example
• Summary

Definition

A class is a programming construct, that falls under the object-oriented programming paradigm [↗]. The goal with classes is to represent part of your solution as objects.

Objects in this case are anything that has a behaviour and or data.

Example

Let's represent a car in the form of a class in PHP [↗]. A car has some attributes such as:

• Color
• Brand and model
• Wheel size etc

It can also do a couple of things, such as:

• Start
• Accelerate
• Break
• Change directions

Etc

🚫 Wrap Code📋 Copy
01: <?php 
02: 
03: class Car {
04: 
05:     public $make = [];
06: 
07:     public function __construct($brand, $model, $year, $start=true) {
08:         $this->make = [
09:             'brand' => $brand,
10:             'model' => $model,
11:             'year' => $year
12:         ];
13:         return $this->startOrStop($start);
14:     }
15: 
16:     public function accelerate() {
17:         // acceleration method
18:         return $this;
19:     }
20: 
21:     public function break() {
22:         // breaking method
23:         return $this;
24:     }
25: 
26:     public function moveLeft() {
27:         // direction method
28:         return $this;
29:     }
30: 
31:     public function moveRight() {
32:         // direction method
33:         return $this;
34:     }
35: 
36:     public function startOrStop($state) {
37:         // ignition method
38:         return $this;
39:     }
40: 
41: }

The above class mimics/represents a few features of a car, like starting accelerating, and moving left or right using methods [→]. The car manufacturing details are stored as a property attribute $make.

Summary

Classes make it easy for developers to create a mental model of large software systems and be able to better visualize the design of systems.

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