Introduction

Content

Apply

Reflect

Extend

State

The state of an object is the set of values of all its attributes at a point in time. At different points in time an object may have different states. The concept of state is important, since the way an object behaves to a message will depend on its state at the time the message is received.

Examples of a software object's state include the following:

• whether the window for a document (or application) is maximised or minimised
• whether an email application is connected on not
• whether a calculator program is expecting a number to be typed, or an operator key such as +
• the balance of a bank account object
• the telephone number of a client object

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