University of Central Florida (UCF) COP3330 Object Oriented Programming Final Practice Exam

An abstract class in Java is defined as one that cannot be instantiated, meaning you cannot create objects of this class directly. This is a fundamental trait of abstract classes, as they are intended to serve as a base for other classes. Additionally, an abstract class can contain abstract methods, which are methods declared without an implementation. This allows subclasses to provide specific implementations of these methods while still leveraging the shared behavior and properties defined in the abstract class.

The ability of an abstract class to include both abstract methods and concrete methods (fully implemented methods) provides a flexible framework for building a hierarchy of related classes. This way, any class that extends the abstract class must implement the abstract methods, ensuring that a specific contract is fulfilled.

In contrast, characteristics such as being able to instantiate the class, having no methods at all, or requiring all methods to be implemented do not apply to abstract classes. They are specifically designed to support abstraction in the object-oriented programming paradigm, allowing developers to outline common behaviors while deferring the specifics to derived classes.