Computer Science Glossary

Michael Henson's

Glossary of Computer Science Terms

Index | A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z


O

object: a concept, abstraction, or thing with crisp boundaries and meanings for the problem at hand; an instance of a class
object design: a stage of the development cycle during which the implementation of each class, association, attribute, and operation is determined
object manager: the collection of procedures and data values that characterize a class of objects
object model: a description of the structure of the objects in a system including their identity, relationships to other objects, attributes, and operations
object-oriented: a software development strategy that organizes software as a collection of objects that contain both data structure and behavoir
OMT: Object Modeling Technique; a software development strategy that uses object, dynamic, and functional models throughout the development life cycle
one-copy update semantics: a model for concurrent access to files in which the processes accessing the file see its contents as if only one copy of it existed
one's complement: an algorithm carried out by inverting all the bits in a binary number
OO: object-oriented
OOPS: object-oriented programming system
openness: the characteristic of a system that determines whether the system can be extended
operation: an action that may be applied to objects in a class
origin class: the topmost class that defines an attribute or operation
overflow flag (OV): the sixth bit in the PSW register; a bit that is set when there is an arithmetic overflow -- when the result of a signed number operation causes the high-order bit to overflow into the sign bit
overload: to define a method with the same name as another method in the same class, but with a different parameter list
override: to define a method for an operation that replaces an inherited method for the same operation