Object collections

An object collection refers to set of objects. There might be different reasons for collecting objects in an object collection. Those reasons mainly define the concept of an object collection. Thus, the way, objects are assigned to object collections, is a relevant aspect of expressing human knowledge.

Objects in object collections may require different treatment, as paid and unpaid invoices are treated differently. The way, an object collections or objects within the collection behave is also a relevant knowledge aspect.

An object collection is a concept that defines a set of individual objects. Object collections can by defined as individual object collections (unpaid invoices of run software)or as general object collections unpaid invoices). An individual object collection is a concept that describes a specific set of individual objects. A general object collection is a concept that defines those individual objects, which may become element of the object collection, i.e. the general object collection describes the extensional aspect of an object collection. General object collections could also be defined by intentional definition, i.e. by describing the role of the collection (children of a person).

Usually, individual objects refer to individual object collections, i.e. a specific enterprise has got a specific collection of unpaid invoices according to the definition of a general object collection unpaid invoices. Thus, an individual object collection refers to a specific set of individual objects, which represent the value or state of the object collection [UDT].

In general, human language does not refer to object collections, but to object instance collections, i.e. not objects are collected, but object instances. Thus, a person being employed in two companies appears twice as employee, i.e. it results in two employee object instances. Counting employees in this case will result in a number greater than the number of existing individual objects (persons) in the same context.

When all objects in an object collection belong to the same object type (e.g. person), the collection becomes a typed object collection.Classes are specific typed object collections, where the object collection consists of all individual objects of a given object type.

Considering object collections also relates to aggregation process in IT. A more sophisticated way of defining object collections will be discussed "Classifications - creating class hierarchies".