Application controlled object

The term application-controlled object is used in object-oriented programming. Application or user controlled objects are created (allocate, new, etc. together with class information) and deleted (deallocate, free, delete, etc.) by explicit application of special system functions on the free space. Their lifetime is therefore controlled by the user.

The scope here refers to the identifier of the variable that holds the object identifier, the reference variable. This allows multiple use of the same object in different parts of the program.

However, care must be taken when observing the referential integrity condition, i.e., a program part expects the existence of an object whose identity is known in a reference variable. These situations occur, for example, whenever a shareable object is deleted.

Another form are the automatic objects. In addition to these two forms, there are mixed forms in object-oriented languages, which were developed from the C programming language.