Python Classes and Recursion

Question 1

object

Answer 1

In programming, an object is a grouping of data (variables) and operations that can be performed on that data (functions or methods).

Question 2

encapsulation

Answer 2

aka Abstraction / information hiding

when a user interacts with an object at a high level, allowing lower-level internal details to remain hidden (aka information hiding or encapsulation).

Question 3

abstract data type / ADT

Answer 3

An abstract data type (ADT) is a data type whose creation and update are constrained to specific well-defined operations.

Question 4

built-in

Answer 4

objects that Python automatically creates for a programmer to use and include the basic data types like integers and strings.

Question 5

class

Answer 5

used to create a user-defined type of object containing groups of related variables and functions.

Question 6

attributes

Answer 6

determines the data and behavior of the class for objects.

Question 7

instantiation

Answer 7

Defining a new class variable by ‘calling’ the class, using parentheses like a function call as in my_time = Time().

Question 8

instance

Answer 8

an individual object of the given class.

Question 9

method

Answer 9

A method is a function defined within a class.

Question 10

constructor

Answer 10

__init__
responsible for setting up the initial state of the new instance.

Question 11

attribute reference operator /
member operator /
dot notation

Answer 11

Attributes can be accessed using the attribute reference operator ‘.’ (sometimes called the member operator or dot notation).

Question 12

instance method

Answer 12

A function defined within a class is known as an instance method.

Question 13

special method name

Answer 13

A special method name, indicating that the method implements some special behavior of the class, identified with the double underscore
__init__ - initializer/constructor

Question 14

class object

Answer 14

A class object acts as a factory that creates instance objects.

Question 15

instance object

Answer 15

When created by the class object, an instance object is initialized via the __init__ method.

Question 16

class attribute

Answer 16

A class attribute is shared among all instances of that class.

Question 17

instance attribute

Answer 17

An instance attribute can be unique to each instance.

Question 18

class interface

Answer 18

A class interface consists of the methods that a programmer calls to create, modify, or access a class instance.

Question 19

abstract data type (ADT)

Answer 19

A class can be used to implement the computing concept known as an abstract data type (ADT), whose creation and update are constrained to specific, well-defined operations (the class interface).

Question 20

Class customization

Answer 20

Class customization is the process of defining how an instance of a class should behave for some common operations. Such operations might include printing, accessing attributes, or how instances of that class are compared to each other.

Question 21

special method names

Answer 21

To customize a class, a programmer implements instance methods with special method names that the Python interpreter recognizes.

Question 22

operator overloading

Answer 22

Class customization can redefine the functionality of built-in operators like <, >=, +, -, and * when used with class instances, a technique known as operator overloading.

Question 23

rich comparison methods

Answer 23

Methods like __lt__ above are known as rich comparison methods.

Question 24

isinstance()

Answer 24

To handle subtraction of arbitrary object types, the built-in isinstance() function can be used.

Question 25

memory allocation

Answer 25

The process of an application requesting and being granted memory is known as memory allocation.

Question 26

Memory deallocation

Answer 26

Memory deallocation is the act of freeing the memory that stores variables or objects in a program.

Question 27

reference count

Answer 27

A reference count is an integer counter that represents how many variables reference an object.

Question 28

recursive function

Answer 28

A function that calls itself is known as a recursive function.

Question 29

base case

Answer 29

The recursive function has an if-else statement, where the if branch is the end of the recursion, known as the base case. The else part has the recursive calls.

Question 30

depth

Answer 30

The depth of recursion is a measure of how many recursive calls of a function have been made, but have not yet returned.