Object-oriented Programming Relationship
In the theory of object-oriented programming an object is said to have an internal state and is capable of receiving messages, responding to them, sending messages to other objects and changing the internal state during message handling. In more practical terminology, to call an object's method is considered the same as to send a message to the object.
Thus, on the one hand, objects from object-oriented programming can be considered as automata (or models of automata) whose state is the combination of internal fields, and one or more methods are considered to be the step. Such methods must not call each other nor themselves, neither directly nor indirectly, otherwise the object can not be considered to be implemented in an automata-based manner.
On the other hand, it is obvious that object is good for implementing a model of an automaton. When the automata-based approach is used within an object-oriented language, an automaton model is usually implemented by a class, the state is represented with internal (private) fields of the class, and the step is implemented as a method; such a method is usually the only non-constant public method of the class (besides constructors and destructors). Other public methods could query the state but don't change it. All the secondary methods (such as particular state handlers) are usually hidden within the private part of the class.
Read more about this topic: Automata-based Programming
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