Defining Classes and Understanding Objects
Explore the fundamentals of defining classes and creating objects in Dart. Understand how to use instance variables and methods, instantiate classes, and work with multiple objects. This lesson builds the foundation for writing clean, reusable object-oriented code in Dart.
A blueprint is a guide used for making something. In the real world, blueprints are plans for buildings. We can create multiple buildings using the same blueprint. Each building is unique but shares the same basic architecture. A blueprint might specify the number of rooms. One house built from it might have white walls, and another might have blue walls. They are unique entities related through a shared structure.
Classes act as blueprints we use to create objects. An object is an instance of a class. That instance is the actual entity we use in our programs. Just like a single house is a physical instance of a paper blueprint, an object is the concrete realization of a class in memory.
The class defines the properties an object will have and the operations it can perform. Together, properties and methods are known as the members of a class. In Dart, properties are called instance variables. These variables hold the specific state of an object once it is created.
Built-in and user-defined classes
Classes in Dart fall into two broad categories: built-in classes and user-defined classes. When we define a list, we are creating an instance of ...