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Talk:Interface (computing)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Wlievens (talk | contribs) at 13:22, 13 April 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Previous text said "interface is a software component", new one says "interface is a specification". The former may be awkward, but the latter is not good either. Specification is too vague, could be a paper document or a description in some logic language that is not understood by the compiler. Whereas an interface (in this sense) is specifically a file that is parsed by the compiler when compiling any client module, and is part of the software's source. So, is there a better term?
Jorge Stolfi 06:22, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That's the point: an interface need not be defined in the source code. An interface is not always a file that is parsed by the compiler.
For example - this is rather simplistic - but say if you write a C program to work with integers and you write int add(int, int);, int sub(int, int);, int some_weird_f(int);, and I wish to use your program, we can work out an interface between your code and mine: that I'm only to use add and sub, but not some_weird_f. If I do use some_weird_f that's a violation of the interface. This "informal" interface still behaves exactly as an interface does/should. Dysprosia 10:09, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Is an interface the same as an object type? Does anyone have explanaion or pointers to explanaion? -- Taku 14:54, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)


The List

A list of programming languages in which the keyword "interface" has *some* meaning is kind of absurd. Wouter Lievens 13:22, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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