Object landscapes and lifetimes Technically, OOP is just about abstract data typing, inheritance, and polymorphism, but other issues can be at least as important。 The remainder of this section will cover these issues。 76215

One of the most important factors is the way objects are created and destroyed。 Where is the data for an object and how is the lifetime of the object controlled? There are different philosophies at work here。 C++ takes the approach that control of efficiency is the most important issue, so it gives the programmer a choice。 For maximum run-time speed, the storage and lifetime can be determined while the program is being written, by placing the objects on the stack (these are sometimes called automatic or scoped variables) or in the static storage area。 This places a priority on the speed of storage allocation and release, and control of these can be very valuable in some situations。 However, you sacrifice flexibility because you must know the exact quantity, lifetime, and type of objects while you're writing the program。 If you are trying to solve a more general problem such as computer-aided design, warehouse management, or air-traffic control, this is too restrictive。 

The second approach is to create objects dynamically in a pool of memory called the heap。 In this approach, you don't know until run-time how many objects you need, what their lifetime is, or what their exact type is。 Those are determined at the spur of the moment while the program is running。 If you need a new object, you simply make it on the heap at the point that you need it。 Because the storage is managed dynamically, at run-time, the amount of time required to allocate storage on the heap is significantly longer than the time to create storage on the stack。 (Creating storage on the stack is often a single assembly instruction to move the stack pointer down, and another to move it back up。) The dynamic approach makes the generally logical assumption that objects tend to be complicated, so the extra overhead of finding storage and releasing that storage will not have an important impact on the creation of an object。 In addition, the greater flexibility is essential to solve the general programming problem。 

Java uses the second approach, exclusively]。 Every time you want to create an object, you use the new keyword to build a dynamic instance of that object。 

There's another issue, however, and that's the lifetime of an object。 With languages that allow objects to be created on the stack, the compiler determines how long the object lasts and can automatically destroy it。 However, if you create it on the heap the compiler has no knowledge of its lifetime。 In a language like C++, you must determine programmatically when to destroy the object, which can lead to memory leaks if you don’t do it correctly (and this is a common problem in C++ programs)。 Java provides a feature called a garbage collector that automatically discovers when an object is no longer in use and destroys it。 A garbage collector is much more convenient because it reduces the number of issues that you must track and the code you must write。 More important, the garbage collector provides a much higher level of insurance against the insidious problem of memory leaks (which has brought many a C++ project to its knees)。 

The rest of this section looks at additional factors concerning object lifetimes and landscapes。 

1。 Collections and iterators

 If you don’t know how many objects you’re going to need to solve a particular problem, or how long they will last, you also don’t know how to store those objects。 How can you know how much space to create for those objects? You can’t, since that information isn’t known until run-time。 

The solution to most problems in object-oriented design seems flippant: you create another type of object。 The new type of object that solves this particular problem holds references to other objects。 Of course, you can do the same thing with an array, which is available in most languages。 But there’s more。 This new object, generally called a container (also called a collection, but the Java library uses that term in a different sense so this book will use “container”), will expand itself whenever necessary to accommodate everything you place inside it。 So you don’t need to know how manyobjects you’re going to hold in a container。 Just create a container object and let it take care of the details。