Term | Definition |
Access level | The part of a method declaration that determines if the method can be called by other classes. |
Access modifier | A keyword in the declaration of a method that determines the access level of a method. |
Argument | The value or variable passed to a method. |
Call | A statement that contains a method name followed by parentheses. |
Boundary Value | A value that lies just inside or just outside the range of valid values. |
Class method | A method that can be called from the class itself. |
Local | Variables, constants, and objects that are declared within a method and therefore have a scope limited to that method. |
Method body | The statements that implement a method. |
Method declaration | The first line of a method, which contains the method name, access level, return type, and parameters, if any. |
Method overloading | Writing more than one method of the same name in a class. |
Method parameters | The part of a method declaration that accepts values from the method call. |
Pass | Giving data to a method by enclosing the data in parentheses in the method call. |
Pass by value | Passing the value of an argument to a method. The type of data passed depends on whether the argument is a primitive or an object. |
Precondition | The part of a method's documentation that states the assumptions, or initial requirements, of the method. Also called "pre". |
Procedural abstraction | Breaking a task down into methods |
Postcondition | The part of a method's documentation that states the assumptions, or initial requirements, of the method. Also called "post". |
Top-down development | A problem-solving approach where a task is broken down into subtasks and then the subtasks are reduced to yet simpler tasks. |
Visibility | The access level of a method. |