Interfaces

An important Object Oriented Programming (OOP) concept utilized by Shining Star is the use of Interfaces. Below are a few simple examples of how we use this concept in our programming to create cleaner, reusable code and hide unnecessary details:

Interfaces

An Interface is used in OOP to define a group of functions, methods, properties, etc. that a struct or non-abstract class is required to implement in order to provide consistency and continuity to our libraries and code.

In a dating site I designed, to handle the dating questionnaire, I used public interfaces to define the requirements for classes that implemented this interface:

Public Class QACheck
    Inherits ShiningStarControl
    Implements IQACheck

  Public Sub Setup(ByVal checkText As String) Implements IQACheck.Setup
        Try
            chkAnswer.Text = checkText
        Catch ex As Exception
            SendError(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub


    Public Property GetSetAnswer() As Boolean Implements IQACheck.GetSetAnswer
        Get
            Return chkAnswer.Checked
        End Get
        Set(ByVal Value As Boolean)
            chkAnswer.Checked = Value
        End Set
    End Property

...

And those in turn also implement the IQACheck Interface:

Public Interface IQACheck

    Property QuestionValueName() As String
    Property QuestionValueQuestion() As String
    Property GetSetAnswer() As Boolean
    Property QAFieldId() As String

    Sub Setup(ByVal checkText As String)

End Interface

Implements

To actually utilize these interfaces, we then use the "Implements" statement:

Public Class QACheck
    Inherits ShiningStarControl
    Implements IQACheck


    Public Property GetSetAnswer() As Boolean Implements IQACheck.GetSetAnswer
        Get
            Return chkAnswer.Checked
        End Get
        Set(ByVal Value As Boolean)
            chkAnswer.Checked = Value
        End Set
    End Property


    Public Property QuestionValueName() As String Implements IQACheck.QuestionValueName
        Get
            Return lblQuestionValueName.Text
        End Get
        Set(ByVal Value As String)
            lblQuestionValueName.Text = Value
        End Set
    End Property