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<TITLE>LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual - Attributes</TITLE>
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<H3><A NAME="SEC5" HREF="ProgrammersManual_toc.html#TOC5">Fundamental Object Attributes</A></H3>

<P>
There are three fundamental <STRONG>attributes</STRONG> to every object:

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A flag (either true or false) specifying whether or not the object represents
a player,
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The object that is its <STRONG>parent</STRONG>, and
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A list of the objects that are its <STRONG>children</STRONG>; that is, those objects for
which this object is their parent.
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<P>
The act of creating a character sets the player attribute of an object and
only a wizard (using the function <CODE>set_player_flag()</CODE>) can change that
setting.  Only characters have the player bit set to 1.

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<P>
The parent/child hierarchy is used for classifying objects into general classes
and then sharing behavior among all members of that class.  For example, the
LambdaCore database contains an object representing a sort of "generic" room.
All other rooms are <STRONG>descendants</STRONG> (i.e., children or children's children,
or ...) of that one.  The generic room defines those pieces of behavior
that are common to all rooms; other rooms specialize that behavior for their
own purposes.  The notion of classes and specialization is the very essence of
what is meant by <STRONG>object-oriented</STRONG> programming.  Only the functions
<CODE>create()</CODE>, <CODE>recycle()</CODE>, <CODE>chparent()</CODE>, and <CODE>renumber()</CODE> can
change the parent and children attributes.

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