created: 12/30/98; revised: 09/26/99, 01/21/00, 07/14/02, 01/19/06, 04/15/07, 08/02/14
The state of an object consists of the data it holds in its instance variables. Instance variables hold their values until they are explicitly changed or until the object is destroyed.
An object's methods frequently work with other values that are not held in instance variables. These values are held in local variables and parameters. This chapter discusses how these are declared and used.
(Review:) What is a parameter of a method?