Abstraction

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Last Modified On :   May 6, 2008 7:04 PM PDT
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Abstraction can have several meanings depending on the context. In software, it often means combining a set of small operations or data items and giving them a name. For example, control abstraction takes a group of operations, combines them into a procedure, and gives the procedure a name. As another example, a class in object-oriented programming is an abstraction of both data and control. More generally, an abstraction is a representation that captures the essential character of an entity but hides the specific details. Often we talk about the named abstraction without concern for the actual details, which may not be determined.