Polymorphism

 Polymorphism in Programming Languages

 A Taxonomy of Polymorphism
 Overloading and Dynamic Binding
 Summary
 Polymorphism - Background
 According to E. A. Mitscherlich (Chemist, 1794-1863)
 The property of a substance to exist in different
forms of appearance (modifications)
 They are build from the same atoms but differentiate in
spatial arrangement of their structure (which have
different properties).
 Different grid structures are the consequence of impacts
like pressure or temperature

 Example
 Graphite, diamond are modifications of carbon.

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 Polymorphism in Programming
 Polymorphism is the ability of something to have different
appearances or shapes

 In programming
 something: variables, functions, procedures, objects
 shape: type

A polymorphic entity can be used in different contexts requiring

different types!

System.out.print(100)
System.out.print("100")

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 Monomorphic and Polymorphic Languages
 Monomorphic languages
 Functions, procedures and their parameters have a unique type
 Every value and every variable is of one and only one type

 Examples: MODULA, Pascal WriteInt(100)

WriteString('100')

 Polymorphic languages
 Values and variables may have more than one type

 Polymorphic functions
 Actual parameters can have more than one type

 Polymorphic types
 Define operations that are applicable to actual parameters of more than
one type

 Examples: Ada, Smalltalk, Java

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 Example: Polymorphism
 Inheritance is a means to realize polymorphism in object oriented
languages.
a DisplayableRectangle behaves like
a Rectangle and like a DisplayableObject
GeoObject DisplayableObject
DisplayableRectangle dr;
dr = new DisplayableRectangle();
Rectangle
dr.contains (p);
x = dr.center(); Rectangle
DisplayableRectangle dr.moveTo (p);

s = dr.psDescription();

DisplayableObject

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 Polymorphism - Taxonomy
Parametric
Polymorphism

Universal
Polymorphism Inclusion
Polymorphism

Polymorphism
Operator
Overloading
Ad-hoc
Polymorphism

Type Coercion

Cardelli, L., Wegner, P. (1985): On Understanding Types, Data Abstraction, and Polymorphism,
ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 17, No. 4
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 Universal and Ad-hoc Polymorphism Parametric
Polymorphism

Universal

 Universal polymorphism
Polymorphism Inclusion
Polymorphism

 Synonym: true polymorphism

Polymorphism
Operator
Overloading
Ad-hoc
Polymorphism

 Universal polymorphic operation is applicable for Type Coercion

a potentially infinite number of different types

 Have a partially common structure
 The same code is executed for all admissible different types

 Ad-hoc polymorphism
 Synonym: apparent polymorphism

 Ad-hoc polymorphic operation is applicable on finite set of different types

 Does not necessarily behave the same
 Different types must not have commonalities
 Depending on the parameter type the operation executes different code
 May be seen as a finite set of monomorphic operations

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 Parametric Polymorphism Parametric
Polymorphism

Universal
Polymorphism Inclusion
Polymorphism

Polymorphism
Operator
Overloading
Ad-hoc
Polymorphism

Type Coercion

 Operation usually has one ore more type parameters which determine the type of
the arguments for each application.
 input, output and result
 Admissible types usually have a common structure

 Using parametric polymorphism, a function or a data type can be written

generically.
 It can handle values identically without depending on their type.
 Are called generic functions and generic data types (classes)

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 Generics - Example
generic
type Element_type is private;
type Index_type is (<>);
type Array_type is array (Index_Type range <>) of Element_type;
with function “<“ (Left, Right : Element_type) return Boolean is <>;

procedure max (ar in out Array_type);

subtype Range_type is Integer range 1 .. 100;

procedure integer_max is new max(Integer, Range_type, "<");

public class CollectionUtil {

public static <T extends Comparable<T>> T max (Collection<T> collection) {

Iterator<T> iter = collection.iterator();
T value1 = iter.next();
while (iter.hasNext()) {
T value2 = iter.next();
if (value1.compareTo(value2) < 0)
value1 = value2;
}
return value1;
}
}

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 Inclusion Polymorphism Parametric
Polymorphism

Universal
Polymorphism Inclusion
Polymorphism

 An object can be viewed as belonging to Polymorphism

many different classes, that need not be disjoint.

Operator
Overloading
Ad-hoc
Polymorphism

 There may be inclusion of classes Type Coercion

 Subtyping realizes inclusion polymorphism

 Objects of a subtype can be manipulated as if belonging to their
supertypes
DisplayableObject

Displayable Displayable Rectangles

Rectangle Objects Rectangles

DisplayableRectangle

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 Overloading and Type Coercion Parametric
Polymorphism

Universal

 Overloading of operations
Polymorphism Inclusion
Polymorphism

Polymorphism

 Purely syntactic way of using the same name Operator

Overloading

for different operations Ad-hoc

Polymorphism

 Context information (types of arguments) is needed Type Coercion

to decide what operation to execute

 The compiler can resolve the ambiguity at compile time

 Type coercion
 Coercion is a semantic operation needed to convert an argument to the
expected type
 Programmer needs not to specify type conversions that are semantically
necessary
 Type conversions are determined by the compiler and inserted to generate
the respective conversion code

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 Example: Overloading and Coercion
 Example
1. 3 + 4
2. 3.0 + 4
3. 3 + 4.0
4. 3.0 + 4.0

 Possible alternatives of applying ad-hoc polymorphism ????

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 Redefinition versus Overloading

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 Redefinition

public boolean equals(Object o) {

if (o instanceof Point) {
Point p = (Point) o;
return (y == p.y) && (x == p.x);
}
else return false;
}

public boolean equals(Object o) {

if (o instanceof ColouredPoint) {
ColouredPoint p = (ColouredPoint) o;
return (super.equals(p)) && c == p.c;
} else return false;
}

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 Overloading

public boolean equals (Point p){

return (y == p.y) && (x == p.x);
}

public boolean equals (ColouredPoint p){

return (super.equals(p)) && (c == p.c);
}

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 Redefinition versus Overloading
public boolean equals(Object o) { public boolean equals (Point p){
if (o instanceof Point) { return (y == p.y) && (x == p.x);
Point p = (Point) o; }
return (y == p.y) && (x == p.x);
} public boolean equals (ColouredPoint p){
else return false; return (super.equals(p)) &&
} color == p.color;
}
public boolean equals(Object o) {
if (o instanceof ColouredPoint) {
ColouredPoint p = (ColouredPoint) o;
return (super.equals(p)) && c == p.c;
} else return false;
}

Point p1 = new Point(1,1);

ColouredPoint c1 = new ColouredPoint(1,1, 200);
Point p2 = new Point(0,0);

Redef. Overl.
p1.equals(p2)
p1.equals(c1)
c1.equals(p1)
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 The Yoyo Effect
Taenzer, D. et al. (1989): Object-Oriented Software Reuse: The Yoyo Problem.
JOOP, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp 30-35.

draw getBitmap

void draw(){
this.getBitmap();}

getFactor
draw

void draw(){
super.draw();
this.getFactor();}

draw getTransMode

void draw(){
super.draw(); TranspIcon myIcon = new TranspIcon();
this.getTransMode();} myIcon.draw();
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 The Yoyo Effect
draw

void draw(){ getBitmap getFactor

this.getBitmap();} draw

void draw(){
super.draw();
this.getFactor();} draw getTransMode

TranspIcon myIcon = new TranspIcon();

myIcon.draw();

Redefinition of methods in a hierarchy may

void draw(){
super.draw(); change the behaviour of other exisiting
this.getTransMode();} methods!
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 Dynamic Binding
public static void main(String[] args){
Dynamic binding:
GeoObject g;
Rectangle r = new Rectangle (4,6); Looking for the right implementation
Circle c = new Circle (4.5); at run-time.
Double a;

g = c;
a = g.area();

g = r;
a = g.area();
}

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 Static and Dynamic Types
 Each variable has a static type (by declaration) static type
GeoObject g;
Rectangle r = new Rectangle (4,6);
Circle c = new Circle (4.5);

g = c; dynamic type
 By means of g = r;

 assignment or parameter passing objects of other (dynamic) types can be bound

to a variable.

 Task of the type checker

 In a polymorphic assignment only types that are subtypes of the static type are
admissible
 This rule guarantees that all called operations exist

 Task of the run-time system

 bind the right operation implementation to the message

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 Method look-up - 1
 Single dispatch
 Search for the method is only based on the receiver of the message
 a plus(b)
 The class of the object bound to a variable determines the method that is
executed
 Argument objects do not contribute to the decision
 Even conceptually symmetric methods are executed asymmetrically.

 Multiple dispatch
 The types of all arguments together determine which method is executed
 plus(a, b)
 No emphasized message receiver

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 Example – Double Dispatch
 Scenario
 There are several kinds of
 graphics, e.g.: Bitmap, VectorGraphic
 media, e.g.: PDFFile, PSFile
 The algorithm to print a graphic on a medium depends on both the graphic
and the medium

 How can we simulate multiple dispatch in Java?

 class Printer
 print (bm, pdf)
 print (bm, ps)
 print (vg, pdf)
 print (vg, ps)
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 Solution 1 : Using Meta-Information
public class Printer {
public static void print (Graphic g, Medium m){
m.print(g);
}
}

public abstract class Medium {

public void print (Graphic g) {
g.printOn(this);
}
} public abstract class Graphic {
public abstract void printOn (Medium m);
}
public class Bitmap extends Graphic {

public void printOn(Medium m) {

if (m instanceof PDFFile){
System.out.println("Bitmap is printed on a PDF file");
}
if (m instanceof PSFile){
System.out.println("Bitmap is printed on a PS file");
}
...
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 Solution 2: Using Type-dependent Methods

public class VectorGraphic extends Graphic {

public void printOnPDF(Medium m) {

System.out.println(“VG is printed as a PDF file");
}

public void printOnPS(Medium m) {

System.out.println(“VG is printed as a PS file");
}
}

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 Solution 2: Dispatching the Call

public class PDFFile extends Medium {

public void print(Graphic g) {

g.printOnPDF(this);
}
}

public class PSFile extends Medium {

public void print(Graphic g) {
g.printOnPS(this);
}
}
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 Solution 2: Dispatch Chain
PDFFile pdf = new PDFFile();
VectorGraphic vg = new VectorGraphic();

Printer.print(vg, pdf)

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 Polymorphism and Open Constructions

print only depends on class

DisplayableObject

print can be used unchanged, even if new subclasses of DisplayableObject are added.
Construction is open and can be extended easily!

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 Type safety <-> Flexibility

Static strong typing

&
Dynamic binding

lead to:

Safety through type system (no run-time errors)

Flexibility realized by polymorphism and dynamic binding

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 Summary
 Polymorphism is a means to create program entities that can be used
in different context.
 Universal polymorphism
 Ad-hoc polymorphism
 Inheritance yields to subtype polymorphism
 Dynamic binding is needed to find the right implementation of
methods at run-time
 We can build open and flexible design that can be extended

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