Object-oriented programming (OOP) The fundamental concept of object-orientation is the "object," which combines data structure and behavior

in a single component. The inner workings of an object may be hidden. Only its visible interfaces with the rest of the world need to be understood by any other processes (or objects) that interact with it. Objects with the same data structure and behavior are grouped into an object "class;" libraries of class definitions are an important asset, and are the basis for the reusability resulting from the object-oriented approach. This is in contrast to "conventional" programming, in which data structures and their behaviors are defined separately and are only loosely connected Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that uses "objects" data structures consisting of datafields and methods and their interactions to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as information hiding, data abstraction, encapsulation, modularity, polymorphism, and inheritance. It was not commonly used in mainstream software application development until the early 1990s. Many modern programming languages now support OOP. An object-oriented program may thus be viewed as a collection of cooperating objects, as opposed to the conventional model, in which a program is seen as a list of tasks (subroutines) to perform. In OOP, each object is capable of receiving messages, processing data, and sending messages to other objects and can be viewed as an independent 'machine' with a distinct role or responsibility. Modern programming languages like C++, Java, C# etc. supports objected oriented programming. The fundamental concepts or quarks of OOP are the following: 1. Class Defines the abstract characteristics of a thing (object), including the thing's characteristics (its attributes, fields or properties) and the thing's behaviors (the things it can do, or methods, operations or features). One might say that a class is a blueprint or factory that describes the nature of something. For example, the class Dog would consist of traits shared by all dogs, such as breed and fur color (characteristics), and the ability to bark and sit (behaviors). 2. Object A pattern (exemplar) of a class. The class of Dog defines all possible dogs by listing the characteristics and behaviors they can have; the object Lassie is one particular dog, with particular versions of the characteristics. A Dog has fur; Lassie has brown-andwhite fur. 3. Instance

One can have an instance of a class or a particular object. The instance is the actual object created at runtime. In programmer jargon, the Lassie object is an instance of the Dog class. The set of values of the attributes of a particular object is called its state. The object consists of state and the behaviour that's defined in the object's class 4. Method An object's abilities. In language, methods (sometimes referred to as "functions") are verbs. Lassie, being a Dog, has the ability to bark. So bark() is one of Lassie's methods. She may have other methods as well, for example sit() or eat() or walk(). Within the program, using a method usually affects only one particular object; all Dogs can bark, but you need only one particular dog to do the barking. 5. Inheritance "Subclasses" are more specialized versions of a class, which inherit attributes and behaviors from their parent classes, and can introduce their own. For example, the class Dog might have sub-classes called Collie, Chihuahua, and GoldenRetriever. In this case, Lassie would be an instance of the Collie subclass. Suppose the Dog class defines a method called bark() and a property called furColor. Each of its sub-classes (Collie, Chihuahua, and GoldenRetriever) will inherit these members, meaning that the programmer only needs to write the code for them once. Each subclass can alter its inherited traits. For example, the Collie class might specify that the default furColor for a collie is brown-and-white. The Chihuahua subclass might specify that the bark() method produces a high pitch by default. Subclasses can also add new members. The Chihuahua subclass could add a method called tremble(). So an individual chihuahua instance would use a high-pitched bark() from the Chihuahua subclass, which in turn inherited the usual bark() from Dog. Multiple inheritance is inheritance from more than one ancestor class. 6. Abstraction Abstraction is simplifying complex reality by modeling classes appropriate to the problem, and working at the most appropriate level of inheritance for a given aspect of the problem. For example, a class Car would be made up of an Engine, Gearbox, Steering objects, and many more components. To build the Car class, one does not need to know how the different components work internally, but only how to interface with them, i.e., send messages to them, receive messages from them, and perhaps make the different objects composing the class interact with each other. 7. Encapsulation Encapsulation conceals the functional details of a class from objects that send messages to it. For example, the Dog class has a bark() method. The code for the bark() method defines exactly how a bark happens (e.g., by inhale() and then exhale(), at a particular pitch and volume). Timmy, Lassie's friend, however, does not need to know exactly how she barks 8. Polymorphism

Polymorphism in object-oriented programming is the ability of objects belonging to different data types to respond to method calls of methods of the same name, each one according to an appropriate type-specific behavior. One method, or an operator such as +, -, or *, can be abstractly applied in many different situations. The "+" operator, for example, may be used to perform integer addition, float addition, list concatenation, or string concatenation. E-R Diagram An entity may be defined as a thing which is recognized as being capable of an independent existence and which can be uniquely identified. An entity may be a physical object such as a house or a car, an event such as a house sale or a car service, or a concept such as a customer transaction or order. An entity-relationship (ER) diagram is a specialized graphic that illustrates the interrelationships between entities in a database. ER diagrams often use symbols to represent three different types of information. Boxes are commonly used to represent entities. Diamonds are normally used to represent relationships and ovals are used to represent attributes.

Consider the example of a database that contains information on the residents of a city. The ER digram shown in the image above contains two entities -- people and cities. There is a single "Lives In" relationship
.

There are three types of relationships between entities:

one-to-one: one instance of an entity (A) is associated with one other instance of another entity (B). For example, in a database of employees, each employee name (A) is associated with only one social security number (B). one-to-many: one instance of an entity (A) is associated with zero, one or many instances of another entity (B), but for one instance of entity B there is only one instance of entity A. For example, for a company with all employees working in one building, the building name (A) is associated with many different employees (B), but those employees all share the same singular association with entity A. many-to-many: one instance of an entity (A) is associated with one, zero or many instances of another entity (B), and one instance of entity B is associated with one, zero or many instances of entity A. For example, for a company in which all of its employees work on multiple projects, each instance of an employee (A) is associated with many instances of a project (B), and at the same time, each instance of a project (B) has multiple employees (A) associated with it.

Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) illustrate the logical structure of databases.

An ER Diagram

Entity Relationship Diagram Notations

Peter Chen developed ERDs in 1976. Since then Charles Bachman and James Martin have added some sligh refinements to the basic ERD principles.

Entity
An entity is an object or concept about which you want to store information. Learn how to edit text on an entity.

Weak Entity
Attributes are the properties or characteristics of an entity. Learn how to edit text on this object.

Key attribute
A key attribute is the unique, distinguishing characteristic of the entity. For example, an employee's social security number might be the employee's key attribute.

Multivalued attribute
A multivalued attribute can have more than one value. For example, an employee entity can have multiple skill values.

Derived attribute
A derived attribute is based on another attribute. For example, an employee's monthly salary is based on the employee's annual salary.

Relationships
Relationships illustrate how two entities share information in the database structure. Learn how to draw relationships: First, connect the two entities, then drop the relationship notation on the line.

Cardinality
Cardinality specifies how many instances of an entity relate to one instance of another entity.

Ordinality is also closely linked to cardinality. While cardinality specifies the occurences of a relationship, ordinality describes the relationship as either mandatory or optional. In other words, cardinality specifies the maximum number of relationships and ordinality specifies the absolute minimum number of relationships.

Click here for more cardinality notations

To learn how to express cardinality in SmartDraw, click here.

Recursive relationship
In some cases, entities can be self-linked. For example, employees can supervise other employees.