AP® Computer Science A glossary

Abstraction

Course: AP® Computer Science A Shows up in: Unit 3: Class Creation

Reducing complexity by focusing on the main idea: hiding details that do not matter for the question at hand and grouping the useful ones.

Appears in the course and exam description (CED): 3.1.A.1

You use abstraction whenever you call a method without reading its code. You know what Math.sqrt does, not how it does it. Classes and methods are the two main tools for abstraction in Java.

System.out.println(Math.sqrt(81.0));

Output:

9.0

Related terms

• Data abstraction
• Procedural abstraction
• Class
• Method