Binding Time
The binding of names before the program is run is called static (also "early"); bindings performed as the program runs are dynamic (also "late" or "virtual").
An example of a static binding is a direct C function call: the function referenced by the identifier cannot change at runtime.
But an example of dynamic binding is dynamic dispatch, as in a C++ virtual method call. Since the specific type of a polymorphic object is not known before runtime (in general), the executed function is dynamically bound. Take, for example, the following Java code:
public void foo(java.util.ListList is an interface, so list must refer to a subtype of it. Is it a reference to a LinkedList, an ArrayList, or some other subtype of List? The actual method referenced by add is not known until runtime. In a language like C, the actual function is known.
Read more about this topic: Name Binding
Famous quotes containing the words binding and/or time:
“With a binding like you’ve got, people are gonna want to know what’s in the book.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)
“You can feel it, in a hundred little ways year after year. It is so certain and inevitable, that the next century will be a time in which it is not simply safe, but commonplace, to be openly gay.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)