Class (programming)

A class is a part of a program that a programmer uses to represent a thing in a way that a computer can understand. A class is written in a programming language and a programming language that can be used to write classes is called an Object-oriented programming language. Classes have fields, which represent a quality the thing has, and classes have methods, which represent what a thing can do.

For example, a class could be a car, which could have a color field, four tire fields, and a drive method. Another, related class could be a pickup truck, which would have similar fields, but not be exactly the same as a car. Both a car and a pickup-truck could be a kind a third class which is a vehicle class. In this way, the programmer could write the parts of the program that are the same for both the car and the pickup-truck in programming the vehicle class, yet the programmer would be free to program how a car is different from a truck without duplicating all of the programming.