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I already read the post of research effort required to post a SO question. I am ashamed again to post this question to a pile of million questions. But I still don't get the idea of interfaces in java. They have unimplemented methods and then defined for every class in which they are implemented. I searched about it. Interfaces were used to support multiple inheritance in java and also to avoid (Deadly) Diamond Death of inheritance. I also came across Composition vs Inheritance and that inheritance is not for code reuse and its for polymorphism. So when I have a common code as a class to extend it will not be supported due to multiple inheritance which gives the option to use Interfaces(Correct me if I am wrong). I also came across that its not possible in most cases to define a generic implementation. So what is the problem in having a common definition (not a perfect generic implementation) of the interface method and then Override it wherever necessary and why doesn't java support it. Eg. When I have 100 classes that implements an interface 70 of them have a common implementation while others have different implementation. Why do I have to define the common method in interface over 70 classes and why can't I define them in Interface and then override them in other 30 classes which saves me from using same code in 70 classes. Is my understanding of interfaces wrong?
First, an interface in Java (as of Java 7) has no code. It's a mere definition, a contract a class must fulfill.
So what is the problem in having a common definition (not a perfect
generic implementation) of the interface method and then Override it
wherever necessary and why doesn't java support it
Yes you can do that in Java, just not with interfaces only. Let's suppose I want from this Example interface to have a default implementation for method1 but leave method2 unimplemented:
interface Example {
public void method1();
public String method2(final int parameter);
}
abstract class AbstractExampleImpl implements Example {
#Override
public void method1() {
// Implement
}
}
Now classes that want to use this method1 default implementation can just extend AbstractExampleImpl. This is more flexible than implementing code in the interface because if you do so, then all classes are bound to that implementation which you might not want. This is the advantage of interfaces: being able to reference a certain behavior (contract) without having to know how the class actually implements this, for example:
List<String> aList = MyListFactory.getNewList();
MyListFactory.getNewList() can return any object implementing List, our code manipulating aList doesn't care at all because it's based on the interface.
What if the class that uses interface already is a Sub-class. Then we
can't use Abstract class as multiple inheritance is not supported
I guess you mean this situation:
class AnotherClass extends AnotherBaseClass
and you want to extend AbstractExampleImpl as well. Yes, in this case, it's not possible to make AnotherClass extend AbstractExampleImpl, but you can write a wrapped inner-class that does this, for example:
class AnotherClass extends AnotherBaseClass implements Example {
private class InnerExampleImpl extends AbstractExampleImpl {
// Here you have AbstractExampleImpl's implementation of method1
}
}
Then you can just internally make all Example methods being actually implemented by InnerExampleImpl by calling its methods.
Is it necessary to have the interface in AnotherClass?
I guess you mean AnotherClass implements Example. Well, this is what you wanted: have AnotherClass implement Example with some default implementation as well as extend another class, or I understood you wrong. Since you cannot extend more than one class, you have to implement the interface so you can do
final Example anotherClass = new AnotherClass();
Otherwise this will not be possible.
Also for every class that implements an interface do I have to design
an inner class?
No, it doesn't have to be an inner class, that was just an example. If you want multiple other classes have this default Example implementation, you can just write a separate class and wrap it inside all the classes you want.
class DefaultExampleImpl implements Example {
// Implements the methods
}
class YourClass extends YetAnotherClass implements Example {
private Example example = new DefaultClassImpl();
#Override
public void method1() {
this.example.method1();
}
#Override
public String method2(final int parameter) {
return this.example.method2(parameter);
}
}
You can create an abstract class to implement that interface, and make your those classes inherit that abstract class, that should be what you want.
A non abstract class that implements and interface needs to implement all the methods from the interface. A abstract class doesn't have to implement all the methods but cannot initiated. If you create abstract class in your example that implements all the interface methods except one. The classes that extend from these abstract class just have to implement the one not already implemented method.
The Java interfaces could have been called contracts instead to better convey their intent. The declarer promise to provide some functionality, and the using code is guaranteed that the object provides that functionality.
This is a powerful concept and is decoupled from how that functionality is provided where Java is a bit limited and you are not the first to notice that. I have personally found that it is hard to provide "perfect" implementations which just need a subclass or two to be usable in a given situation. Swing uses adapters to provide empty implementations which can then be overrides as needed and that may be the technique you are looking for.
The idea of the interface is to create a series of methods that are abstract enough to be used by different classes that implement them. The concept is based on the DRY principle (Don't repeat yourself) the interface allows you to have methods like run() that are abstract enough to be usuable for a game loop, a players ability to run,
You should understand the funda of interface first. Which is
It is use to provide tight coupling means tight encapsulation
It helps us to hide our code from the external environment i.e. from other class
Interface should have only definition and data which is constant
It provide facility to class open for extension. Hence it cannot be replace by the any other class in java otherwise that class will become close for extension. which means class will not be able to extend any other class.
I think you are struggling with the concept of Object Oriented Design more than anything. In your example above where you state you have 100 classes and 70 of them have the same method implementation (which I would be stunned by). So given an interface like this:
public interface Printable
{
void print();
}
and two classes that have the "same" implementation of print
public class First implements Printable
{
public void print()
{
System.out.println("Hi");
}
}
public class Second implements Printable
{
public void print()
{
System.out.println("Hi");
}
}
you would instead want to do this:
public abstract class DefaultPrinter implements Printable
{
public void print()
{
System.out.println("Hi");
}
}
now for First and Second
public class First extends DefaultPrinter
{
}
public class Second extends DefaultPrinter
{
}
Now both of these are still Printable . Now this is where it gets very important to understand how to properly design object hierarchies. If something IS NOT a DefaultPrinter YOU CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT make the new class extend DefaultPrinter
I'm working on a tool where users can use their own annotations to describe data processing workflow (like validation, transformation etc).
Besides using ready-to-use annotations, users can user their own: in order to do this they need to declare annotation class itself, and then implement annotation processor (<--it's the main point of this question actualy).
The configured method for data processing may look like this one:
void foo(#Provide("dataId") #Validate(Validator.class) String str) {
doSmth(str);
}
There're naturally three groups of annotations:
those which produce initial values;
those which transforms values (converters);
those which just read values and perform some work (validators, different consumers).
So I need to make a choise: either create one interface for handling all these types of annotations, which can look like this one:
interface GenericAnnotationProcessor {
Object processAnnotation(Annotation annotation, Object processedValue);
}
Or I can add 3 intefaces to the API:
interface ProducerAnnotationProcessor {
Object produceInitValue(Annotation annotation);
}
interface TransformerAnnotationProcessor {
Object transformValue(Annotation annotation, Object currentValue);
}
interface ConsumerAnnotationProcessor {
void consumeValue(Annotation annotation, Object currentValue);
}
The first option is not very clear in use, but the third option pollutes the API with 3 almost similar interfaces.
What would you choose (first of all as an API user) and why?
Thanks!
I would create the first, more general interface, then define the three different implementation classes. Without knowing more about how you will be using this, my first instinct would be to define the Interface and/or a base class (depending upon how much common implementation code was shared between the different processors), and then add specialized processor implementation in derived types, all of whihc share the common interface.
In using the API, I would expect to declare a variable which implements GenericAnnotationProcessor, and then assign the appropriate implementation type depending upon my needs.
It is early here in Portland, OR, but at this moment, at 50% of my required caffeine level, this seems to me like it would provide maximum flexibility while maximizing cade re-use.
Of course, your actual reuirements might dictate otherwise . . .
Hope that was helpful!
Just diving deep into your problem.
As they are executing similar task, with some variance, Strategy pattern #Example should assist you.
Your problem should look like something below.
interface GenericAnnotationProcessor {
Object processAnnotation(Annotation annotation, Object processedValue);
}
interface ProducerAnnotationProcessor implements GenericAnnotationProcessor {
}
interface TransformerAnnotationProcessor implements GenericAnnotationProcessor {
}
interface ConsumerAnnotationProcessor implements GenericAnnotationProcessor {
}
Now you can follow example from Wiki
class Context {
// map of annotation processors
// register(add/remove) annotation processors to the map
public int executeAnnotationProcessor(Annotation annotation, Object processedValue) {
return locateAnnotationProcessor(annotation).processAnnotation(annotation, processedValue);
}
private GenericAnnotationProcessor locateAnnotationProcessor(Annotation annotation) {
// return expected annotation processor
}
}
I believe you can understand.
You can use Interfaces Extending Interfaces More on there
Similar to classes, you can build up inheritance hierarchies of interfaces by using the extends keyword, as in:
interface Washable {
void wash();
}
interface Soakable extends Washable {
void soak();
}
In this example, interface Soakable extends interface Washable. Consequently, Soakable inherits all the members of Washable. A class that implements Soakable must provide bodies for all the methods declared in or inherited by Soakable, wash() and soak(), or be declared abstract. Note that only interfaces can "extend" other interfaces. Classes can't extend interfaces, they can only implement interfaces.
Hope it helps.
We can extend a class but we cannot implement a class. We can implement an interface, but cannot extend an interface.
In what cases should we be using extends?
extends is used for either extending a base class:
class ClassX extends ClassY {
...
}
or extending an interface:
interface InterfaceA extends InterfaceB {
...
}
Note that interfaces cannot implement other interfaces (most likely because they have no implementation).
Java doesn't impose any naming conventions for classes vs. interfaces (in contrast to IFoo for interfaces in the .NET world) and instead uses the difference between extends and implements to signify the difference to the programmer:
class ClassA extends ClassB implements InterfaceC, InterfaceD {
...
}
Here you can clearly see that you're building upon an existing implementation in ClassB and also implement the methods from two interfaces.
Is a matter of uses. Interfaces can be used as a contract with your application and then base classes can be use to extend that interface, so it is loosely couple.
Take for example Injection Dependency pattern:
You first write a contract:
public interface IProductRepository
{
IList<T> GetAllProducts();
}
Then you extend your contract with a base class:
public abstract BaseProductRepository : IProductRepository
{
public IList<T> GetAllProducts()
{ //Implementation }
}
Now you have the option to extend base into two or more concrete classes:
public class InternetProductRepository extends BaseProductRepository;
public class StoreProductRepository extends BaseProductRepository;
I hope this small examples clears the differences between extend and Implement. sorry that I did not use java for the example but is all OO, so I think you will get the point.
Thanks for reading, Geo
I did not complete the code for injection dependency pattern but the idea is there, is also well documented on the net. Let me know if you have any questions.
Actually, you can extend an interface - in the case where you're defining another interface.
There are lots of quasi-religious arguments about this issue and I doubt there's a clear right answer, but for what it's worth here's my take on things. Use subclassing (i.e. extends), when your various classes provide the same sort of functionality, and have some implementation details in common. Use interface implementation, in order to signal that your classes provide some particular functionality (as specified by the interface).
Note that the two are not mutually exclusive; in fact if a superclass implements an interface, then any subclasses will also be considered to implement that interface.
In Java there is no multiple inheritance, so that a (sub)class can only have one parent class, and subclassing should be considered carefully so as to choose an appropriate parent if any at all; choosing a parent that reflects just a small amount of the class' abilities is likely to end in frustration later if there are other sensible parent classes. So for example, having an AbstractSQLExecutor with SQL Server and Oracle subclasses makes a lot of sense; but having a FileUtils parent class with some utility methods in, and then subclassing that all over the place in order to inherit that functionality, is a bad idea (in this case you should likely declare the helper methods static, or hold a reference to a FileUtils instance, instead).
Additionally, subclassing ties you to implementation details (of your parent) more than implementing an interface does. I'd say that in general it's better merely to implement the interface, at least initially, and only form class hierarchies of classes in the same or similar packages with a clear hierarchical structure.
Like you said. the implement java keyword is used to implement an interface where the extends is used to extend a class.
It depends what you would like to do. Typically you would use an interface when you want to force implementation (like a contract). Similar to an abstract class (but with an abstract class you can have non-abstract methods).
Remember in java you can only extend one class and implement zero to many interfaces for the implementing class. Unlike C# where you can extend multiple classes using :, and where C# only uses the : symbol for both interfaces and classes.
extends keyword is used for either extending a concrete/abstract class. By extending, u can either override methods of parent class / inherit them. A class can only extend class.
U can also say interface1 extends intenface2.
implements keyword is used for implementing interface. In this case u have to define all the methods indicated in interface. A class can only implement interface.
What are tagging interfaces and what are they used for?
A tagging interface typically has some magic associated with it: either directly built into the VM, or using reflection. Because the magic could technically apply to any class, you use the tagging to indicate that you thought well about the magic and whether it applies to your class.
Because sometimes, it really makes sense if some property of a type can be used as a type itself - Serializable comes to mind. If I make a method like this:
public void save(Object data){ ... }
... you don't really know how that data will be saved. VM serialization? Bean property serialization? Some homebrewed scheme? Whereas if you write it like this:
public void save(Serializable data){ ... }
... it is quite clear (if only the designer of ObjectOutputStream had used this possibility!). Sometimes it makes sense to use annotations when you want to add meta-data to types, but in this case, I'd argue for a tagging interface.
The question of marker interfaces vs annotations is discussed in Bloch's "Effective Java", and part of that section is available on google books here
It was used to mentioned some property of a class (like Serializable shows, that the class is allowed to serialize). Now annotations could do this job.
In addition to the other answers marker interfaces can also be used to specify additional properties of a class that is not inherited by some other already-implemented interface. One example of this would be the interface RandomAccess. It denotes a collection that can be accessed randomly without loss of performance and does not have to be accessed via an iterator to achieve that performance.
You can tag your class with a tagging interface to say to your fellow developer and consumer of your class that you explicitely support that functionality. Think of Serializable; someone who needs to persist a Session and uses serialization to do that can safely use an object of your class.
It can be further used in reflection; nowadays it is common to use annotations to do this but in the olden days you can inspect a class, check whether it implements a certain interface (like DAO) and if so, process the object further (I'm thinking about the Entity annotation here).
tagging interfaces are interfaces with no abstract methods inside , they are used to add a data type for the class which implements them and to be a parent interface for other interfaces ( especially with multiple inheritance in interfaces )
public interface name {}
public interface john1 {}
public interface john2 {}
public interface Demo extends john1 , john2 , name {}
** when JVM sees the name interface , it will find out that the Demo will exert a specific cenario .
I would also add you can use tagging interfaces to restrict ownership of an instance:
interface IFlumThing;
interface IFlooThing;
class BaseThing {...}
class FlumThing extends BaseThing implements IFlumThing {};
class FlooThing extends BaseThing implements IFlooThing {};
class Flum {
addThing(IFlumThing thing){...};
}
class Floo {
addThing(IFlooThing thing){...};
}
I was wondering how to unit test abstract classes, and classes that extend abstract classes.
Should I test the abstract class by extending it, stubbing out the abstract methods, and then test all the concrete methods? Then only test the methods I override, and test the abstract methods in the unit tests for objects that extend my abstract class?
Should I have an abstract test case that can be used to test the methods of the abstract class, and extend this class in my test case for objects that extend the abstract class?
Note that my abstract class has some concrete methods.
There are two ways in which abstract base classes are used.
You are specializing your abstract object, but all clients will use the derived class through its base interface.
You are using an abstract base class to factor out duplication within objects in your design, and clients use the concrete implementations through their own interfaces.!
Solution For 1 - Strategy Pattern
If you have the first situation, then you actually have an interface defined by the virtual methods in the abstract class that your derived classes are implementing.
You should consider making this a real interface, changing your abstract class to be concrete, and take an instance of this interface in its constructor. Your derived classes then become implementations of this new interface.
This means you can now test your previously abstract class using a mock instance of the new interface, and each new implementation through the now public interface. Everything is simple and testable.
Solution For 2
If you have the second situation, then your abstract class is working as a helper class.
Take a look at the functionality it contains. See if any of it can be pushed onto the objects that are being manipulated to minimize this duplication. If you still have anything left, look at making it a helper class that your concrete implementation take in their constructor and remove their base class.
This again leads to concrete classes that are simple and easily testable.
As a Rule
Favor complex network of simple objects over a simple network of complex objects.
The key to extensible testable code is small building blocks and independent wiring.
Updated : How to handle mixtures of both?
It is possible to have a base class performing both of these roles... ie: it has a public interface, and has protected helper methods. If this is the case, then you can factor out the helper methods into one class (scenario2) and convert the inheritance tree into a strategy pattern.
If you find you have some methods your base class implements directly and other are virtual, then you can still convert the inheritance tree into a strategy pattern, but I would also take it as a good indicator that the responsibilities are not correctly aligned, and may need refactoring.
Update 2 : Abstract Classes as a stepping stone (2014/06/12)
I had a situation the other day where I used abstract, so I'd like to explore why.
We have a standard format for our configuration files. This particular tool has 3 configuration files all in that format. I wanted a strongly typed class for each setting file so, through dependency injection, a class could ask for the settings it cared about.
I implemented this by having an abstract base class that knows how to parse the settings files formats and derived classes that exposed those same methods, but encapsulated the location of the settings file.
I could have written a "SettingsFileParser" that the 3 classes wrapped, and then delegated through to the base class to expose the data access methods. I chose not to do this yet as it would lead to 3 derived classes with more delegation code in them than anything else.
However... as this code evolves and the consumers of each of these settings classes become clearer. Each settings users will ask for some settings and transform them in some way (as settings are text they may wrap them in objects of convert them to numbers etc.). As this happens I will start to extract this logic into data manipulation methods and push them back onto the strongly typed settings classes. This will lead to a higher level interface for each set of settings, that is eventually no longer aware it's dealing with 'settings'.
At this point the strongly typed settings classes will no longer need the "getter" methods that expose the underlying 'settings' implementation.
At that point I would no longer want their public interface to include the settings accessor methods; so I will change this class to encapsulate a settings parser class instead of derive from it.
The Abstract class is therefore: a way for me to avoid delegation code at the moment, and a marker in the code to remind me to change the design later. I may never get to it, so it may live a good while... only the code can tell.
I find this to be true with any rule... like "no static methods" or "no private methods". They indicate a smell in the code... and that's good. It keeps you looking for the abstraction that you have missed... and lets you carry on providing value to your customer in the mean time.
I imagine rules like this one defining a landscape, where maintainable code lives in the valleys. As you add new behaviour, it's like rain landing on your code. Initially you put it wherever it lands.. then you refactor to allow the forces of good design to push the behaviour around until it all ends up in the valleys.
Write a Mock object and use them just for testing. They usually are very very very minimal (inherit from the abstract class) and not more.Then, in your Unit Test you can call the abstract method you want to test.
You should test abstract class that contain some logic like all other classes you have.
What I do for abstract classes and interfaces is the following: I write a test, that uses the object as it is concrete. But the variable of type X (X is the abstract class) is not set in the test. This test-class is not added to the test-suite, but subclasses of it, that have a setup-method that set the variable to a concrete implementation of X. That way I don't duplicate the test-code. The subclasses of the not used test can add more test-methods if needed.
To make an unit test specifically on the abstract class, you should derive it for testing purpose, test base.method() results and intended behaviour when inheriting.
You test a method by calling it so test an abstract class by implementing it...
If your abstract class contains concrete functionality that has business value, then I will usually test it directly by creating a test double that stubs out the abstract data, or by using a mocking framework to do this for me. Which one I choose depends a lot on whether I need to write test-specific implementations of the abstract methods or not.
The most common scenario in which I need to do this is when I'm using the Template Method pattern, such as when I'm building some sort of extensible framework that will be used by a 3rd party. In this case, the abstract class is what defines the algorithm that I want to test, so it makes more sense to test the abstract base than a specific implementation.
However, I think it's important that these tests should focus on the concrete implementations of real business logic only; you shouldn't unit test implementation details of the abstract class because you'll end up with brittle tests.
one way is to write an abstract test case that corresponds to your abstract class, then write concrete test cases that subclass your abstract test case. do this for each concrete subclass of your original abstract class (i.e. your test case hierarchy mirrors your class hierarchy). see Test an interface in the junit recipies book: http://safari.informit.com/9781932394238/ch02lev1sec6. https://www.manning.com/books/junit-recipes or https://www.amazon.com/JUnit-Recipes-Practical-Methods-Programmer/dp/1932394230 if you don't have a safari account.
also see Testcase Superclass in xUnit patterns: http://xunitpatterns.com/Testcase%20Superclass.html
I would argue against "abstract" tests. I think a test is a concrete idea and doesn't have an abstraction. If you have common elements, put them in helper methods or classes for everyone to use.
As for testing an abstract test class, make sure you ask yourself what it is you're testing. There are several approaches, and you should find out what works in your scenario. Are you trying to test out a new method in your subclass? Then have your tests only interact with that method. Are you testing the methods in your base class? Then probably have a separate fixture only for that class, and test each method individually with as many tests as necessary.
This is the pattern I usually follow when setting up a harness for testing an abstract class:
public abstract class MyBase{
/*...*/
public abstract void VoidMethod(object param1);
public abstract object MethodWithReturn(object param1);
/*,,,*/
}
And the version I use under test:
public class MyBaseHarness : MyBase{
/*...*/
public Action<object> VoidMethodFunction;
public override void VoidMethod(object param1){
VoidMethodFunction(param1);
}
public Func<object, object> MethodWithReturnFunction;
public override object MethodWithReturn(object param1){
return MethodWihtReturnFunction(param1);
}
/*,,,*/
}
If the abstract methods are called when I don't expect it, the tests fail. When arranging the tests, I can easily stub out the abstract methods with lambdas that perform asserts, throw exceptions, return different values, etc.
If the concrete methods invoke any of the abstract methods that strategy won't work, and you'd want to test each child class behavior separately. Otherwise, extending it and stubbing the abstract methods as you've described should be fine, again provided the abstract class concrete methods are decoupled from child classes.
I suppose you could want to test the base functionality of an abstract class... But you'd probably be best off by extending the class without overriding any methods, and make minimum-effort mocking for the abstract methods.
One of the main motivations for using an abstract class is to enable polymorphism within your application -- i.e: you can substitute a different version at runtime. In fact, this is very much the same thing as using an interface except the abstract class provides some common plumbing, often referred to as a Template pattern.
From a unit testing perspective, there are two things to consider:
Interaction of your abstract class with it related classes. Using a mock testing framework is ideal for this scenario as it shows that your abstract class plays well with others.
Functionality of derived classes. If you have custom logic that you've written for your derived classes, you should test those classes in isolation.
edit: RhinoMocks is an awesome mock testing framework that can generate mock objects at runtime by dynamically deriving from your class. This approach can save you countless hours of hand-coding derived classes.
First if abstract class contained some concrete method i think you should do this considered this example
public abstract class A
{
public boolean method 1
{
// concrete method which we have to test.
}
}
class B extends class A
{
#override
public boolean method 1
{
// override same method as above.
}
}
class Test_A
{
private static B b; // reference object of the class B
#Before
public void init()
{
b = new B ();
}
#Test
public void Test_method 1
{
b.method 1; // use some assertion statements.
}
}
If an abstract class is appropriate for your implementation, test (as suggested above) a derived concrete class. Your assumptions are correct.
To avoid future confusion, be aware that this concrete test class is not a mock, but a fake.
In strict terms, a mock is defined by the following characteristics:
A mock is used in place of each and every dependency of the subject class being tested.
A mock is a pseudo-implementation of an interface (you may recall that as a general rule, dependencies should be declared as interfaces; testability is one primary reason for this)
Behaviors of the mock's interface members -- whether methods or properties
-- are supplied at test-time (again, by use of a mocking framework). This way, you avoid coupling of the implementation being tested with the implementation of its dependencies (which should all have their own discrete tests).
Following #patrick-desjardins answer, I implemented abstract and it's implementation class along with #Test as follows:
Abstract class - ABC.java
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
public abstract class ABC {
abstract String sayHello();
public List<String> getList() {
final List<String> defaultList = new ArrayList<>();
defaultList.add("abstract class");
return defaultList;
}
}
As Abstract classes cannot be instantiated, but they can be subclassed, concrete class DEF.java, is as follows:
public class DEF extends ABC {
#Override
public String sayHello() {
return "Hello!";
}
}
#Test class to test both abstract as well as non-abstract method:
import org.junit.Before;
import static org.hamcrest.MatcherAssert.assertThat;
import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.empty;
import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.is;
import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.not;
import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.contains;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.List;
import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.equalTo;
import org.junit.Test;
public class DEFTest {
private DEF def;
#Before
public void setup() {
def = new DEF();
}
#Test
public void add(){
String result = def.sayHello();
assertThat(result, is(equalTo("Hello!")));
}
#Test
public void getList(){
List<String> result = def.getList();
assertThat((Collection<String>) result, is(not(empty())));
assertThat(result, contains("abstract class"));
}
}